\.sX  s./..li-.  ;..<.. US. .-'A' 


PRACTICAL  AGITATION 


SERIES  IN  AMERICAN  STUDIES 

Editor-in-Chief:  Joseph  J.  Kwiat 

PROGRAM  IN  AMERICAN  STUDIES 
UNIVERSITY  OF  MINNESOTA 


PRACTICAL 


AGITATION 


BY 

JOHN  JAY  CHAPMAN 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S   SONS 

1900 


JOHNSON   REPRINT   CORPORATION       JOHNSON  REPRINT  COMPANY  LTD. 

1 1 1  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York,  N.Y.  10003        Berkeley  Square  House,  London,  W1X6BA 


Copyright,  1900, 
By  Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 


First  reprinting  1970,  Johnson  Reprint  Corporation 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


DEDICATED 

TO 

E\]t  ftlrmotg 

OF 

THEODORE   BACON 


PREFACE 

This  book  is  an  attempt  to  follow  the  track 
of  personal  influence  across  society.  The 
first  three  chapters  are  taken  up  with  discus- 
sions of  political  reform,  the  fourth  chapter 
with  contemporary  journalism.  The  results 
of  these  discussions  are  then  summarized  in 
the  chapters  called  "  Principles." 

I  know  that  there  are  as  many  ways  of 
stating  the  main  idea  of  the  book  as  there 
are  minds  in  the  world.  That  idea  is,  that 
we  can  always  do  more  for  mankind  by  fol- 
lowing the  good  in  a  straight  line  than 
we  can  by  making  concessions  to  evil.  The 
illusion  that  it  is  wise  or  necessary  to  sup- 
press our  instinctive  love  of  truth  comes 
from  an  imperfect  understanding  of  what  that 
instinctive  love  of  truth  represents,  and  of 
what  damage  happens  both  to  ourselves  and 


PREFACE 

to  others  when  we  suppress  it.  The  more 
closely  we  look  at  the  facts,  the  more  serious 
does  this  damage  appear.  And  on  the  other 
hand,  the  more  closely  we  look  at  the  facts, 
the  more  trifling,  inconsequent,  and  absurd 
do  all  those  reasons  appear  which  strive  to 
make  us  accept,  and  thereby  sanctify  and 
preserve,  some  portion  of  the  conceded  evil 
in  the  world. 

J.  J-  c 

New  York,  February  5,  1900. 


CONTENTS 

Page 

I.     Election  Time 1 

II.     Between  Elections 34 

III.  The  Masses 67 

IV.  Literature 8  3 

V.     Principles io4 

VI.     Principles  {continued') 126 

VII.     Conclusion J35 


PRACTICAL  AGITATION 


ELECTION   TIME 

It  is  the  ambition  of  the  agitator  to  use  the 
machinery  of  government  to  make  men  more 
unselfish.  In  so  far  as  he  succeeds  in  this, 
he  is  creating  a  living  church,  the  only  sort 
of  State  church  that  would  be  entirely  at  one 
with  our  system,  because  it  would  be  merely 
a  representation  in  the  formal  government  of 
a  spirit  abroad  among  the  people. 

Campaign  platforms  are  merely  creeds.  "  I 
believe  in  Civil  Service  Reform  "  is  a  way  of 
saying  "I  do  not  believe  in  theft,"  and  the 
phrase  was  a  fragmentary  and  incomplete 
formulation  of  the  greater  truth.  It  was  the 
sign  that  a  movement  was  beginning  among 
the  people  due  to  reawakening  instinct,  re- 
awakening sensibility.  It  was  the  forerunner 
of  all  those  changes  for  the  better  that  have 
been  spreading  over  our  administrative  gov- 
ernment during  the  last  thirty  years.  A  quiet 
revolution  has  been  going  forward  under  our 
i  i 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

eyes,  recorded  step  by  step.  It  is  only  be- 
cause our  standards  have  been  going  up  faster 
than  the  reforms  came  in  that  we  believe  the 
evils  are  growing  worse.  Such  changes  go 
on  all  the  time  all  over  the  world,  but  the 
value  and  rarity  of  this  one  come  from  its 
unity  and  coherence.  Such  a  thing  might 
happen  in  Germany  or  in  England,  but  you 
could  not  disentangle  the  forces. 

Thirty  years  ago  politics  was  thought  to 
be  no  occupation  for  a  gentleman.  It  was  a 
matter  of  bar-rooms,  ballot-box-stuffing,  rolls 
of  dirty  bills.  You  had  as  little  to  do  with  it 
as  possible.  You  voted  your  party  ticket, 
you  paid  your  taxes.  You  bribed  the  ash- 
man and  the  policeman  at  your  uptown 
house,  and  the  clerk  of  the  court,  the  inspec- 
tor, the  custom-house  agent,  and  the  commis- 
sioner of  jurors  at  your  office. 

That  subtle  change  of  attitude  in  the 
citizen  towards  his  public  duty  which  is  now 
in  progress,  has  in  it  something  of  the 
religious.  The  whole  matter  becomes  com- 
prehensible the  moment  we  cease  to  think 
of  it  as  politics,  and  see  in  it  a  widespread 
and  perfectly  natural  reaction  against  an  era 
of  wickedness.  Had  our  framework  of  gov- 
ernment afforded  no  outlet  to  the  force,  had 
our  ills  been  irremediably  crystallized  into 


ELECTION    TIME 

formal  tyranny,  we  should  perhaps  have  wit- 
nessed great  revivalist  upheavals,  sacra- 
ments, saints,  prophets,  prostrations,  and 
adoration.  As  it  is,  we  have  seen  deadly 
pamphlets,  schedules,  enactments,  docu- 
ments which  it  required  our  whole  attention 
and  our  whole  time  to  understand;  and 
behind  each  of  them  a  remorseless  inter- 
rogator with  a  white  cravat  and  a  face  of 
iron.  What  motive  drives  them  on?  What 
oil  fills  their  lamps?  Who  feeds  them? 
These  horrid  things  they  bring,  these  in- 
struments forged  by  unremitting  toil,  tech- 
nical, insufferable,  —  they  are  the  cure. 
With  such  levers,  and  with  them  only,  can 
the  stones  be  lifted  off  the  hearts  of  men. 
They  are  the  alternatives  of  revolution. 

"  Reform  "  may  have  a  thousand  meanings, 
and  be  used  to  cover  a  thousand  projects  of 
doubtful  utility.  But  with  us  it  has  a 
definite  meaning.  When  the  foreigner  says, 
"  Ah,  but  is  your  reform  the  right  remedy  ? " 
he  thinks  it  is  a  question  of  policy,  or  of 
the  incidence  of  a  tax.  He  supposes  there 
is  an  intellectual  question.  But  with  us  the 
problem  is  how  to  protect  an  attorney  against 
a  dishonest  judge;  how  to  stop  the  sheriff 
from  stealing  a  fund,  pending  the  litigation. 

What  we  want  to  do,  what  we  are  doing, 
3 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

is  to  get  rid  of  gross  malpractices,  gross 
theft,  gross  abuse  of  public  trust.  It  is 
waste  of  time  to  expend  learned  argument 
on  a  judge  who  has  been  bought.  The 
litigants  must  join  forces  and  get  rid  of 
that  judge  before  they  can  talk.  Of  course 
we  know  that  the  real  trouble  with  our  poli- 
tics is  that  these  attorneys  have  themselves 
bribed  the  judge  and  share  in  the  division 
of  their  clients'  property.  It  is  to  ques- 
tions of  this  kind  that  the  conscience  of  the 
country  has  been  drawn. 

There  is  nothing  peculiarly  sacred  about 
politics,  but  the  history  of  reform  move- 
ments during  the  last  few  years  furnishes 
such  striking  and  wonderful  illustrations  of 
human  nature  that  it  is  worth  study. 

A  few  men  have  a  desire,  a  hope  of  im- 
proving some  evil.  They  stagger  towards  it 
and  fall.  The  impulse  is  always  good. 
The  mistakes  made  are  progressive.  They 
record  the  past;  they  outline  the  future.  If 
you  draw  an  arrow  through  them,  it  will 
point  north. 

If  you  arrange  the  reform  movements 
against  Tammany  Hall  in  a  series,  and  con- 
sider them  minutely,  you  will  find  that  the 
earlier  ones  are  comparatively  corrupt,  spo- 
radic, disorganized,  ignorant,  and  short- 
4 


ELECTION    TIME 

sighted  in  purpose.  They  have  steadily 
become  more  honest,  more  frequent,  more 
coherent,  more  intelligent  and  ambitious. 
If  you  examine  any  one  of  them,  it  would  be 
impossible  to  misplace  it  in  the  series. 
Looking  more  closely,  you  see  the  reason. 
The  earlier  the  movement,  the  more  zeal- 
ously do  its  leaders  imitate  the  methods  of 
current  politics.  Each  movement  represents 
the  philosophy  of  its  era.  We  have  had: 
i.  The  frankly  corrupt  era  (fighting  the  devil 
with  fire).  2.  The  compromise  era  (buying 
reform).  3.  The  educational  era,  which  be- 
gan two  years  ago,  after  Low  was  defeated, 
when  people  said  they  were  glad  of  the  move- 
ment, in  spite  of  the  defeat.  Note  this,  that 
Low  did  not  lead  a  lost  cause,  nor  was  any 
belief  in  lost  causes  at  the  bottom  of  his 
movement.  But  in  making  the  best  of  his 
defeat,  many  minds  stumbled  into  philoso- 
phy. And  this  illustrates  the  progress  of  an 
idea.  People  will  accept  it  as  an  explanation 
of  the  past  before  they  will  take  it  as  a  guide 
to  the  future.  It  glimmers  before  them  at  a 
moment  when  they  need  comfort,  and  van- 
ishes in  the  light  of  a  comfortable  habit  or 
prejudice.  This  apparition  of  the  educa- 
tional idea  flitted  across  New  York  and  took 
root  in  many  minds. 

5 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

Now  the  smoky  torch  of  reform  has  passed 
from  hand  to  hand,  and  is  beginning  to 
burn  brighter.  How  could  the  original 
darkness  give  forth  more  than  a  gleam  ? 
All  progress  is  experimental.  The  archi- 
tects discovered  by  practice  that  the  arch 
would  support  itself.  Their  earlier  efforts 
were  tentative.  You  can  see  what  notion 
they  had  in  mind,  as  they  very  gradually 
learned  how  to  subserve  the  laws  of  gravity 
and  tension.  Each  improvement  is  qualified 
by  its  author's  limitations,  but  shows  a  gain 
as  toward  the  immediate  past.  You  are  fol- 
lowing the  steps  of  the  groping  and  fumbling 
mind  of  man,  fettered  at  every  point  by  his 
own  conceptions,  moving  each  time  towards 
a  bolder  generalization,  each  stride  forward 
exactly  proportionate  to  the  breadth  of 
thought  on  which  it  is  calculated. 

What  other  method  is  there?  The  men 
who  fought  the  Tweed  Ring  did  what  passed 
for  "politics"  in  their  day.  "Votes  must 
be  paid  for,  of  course;  but  let  the  people 
vote  right." 

The  philosophy  of  the  Strong  movement 
in  1894  showed  an  advance.  "The  plunder 
must  be  divided,  of  course;  but  let  us  have 
it  because  we  are  virtuous." 

The  Low  movement  in  1897  appealed  to 
6 


ELECTION    TIME 

voters  on  the  ground  of  self-interest.  Labor 
had  to  be  conciliated,  local  politicians  of 
the  worst  sort  subsidized;  $150,000  was 
spent,  four-fifths  of  it  in  ways  that  did  more 
harm  than  good.  But  the  methods  were 
delicate. 

The  battle  of  the  standards  goes  forward 
ceaselessly;  but  all  standards  are  going  up. 
What  the  half-way  reformer  calls  "politics," 
the  idealist  calls  chicanery;  what  the  ideal- 
ist calls  politics,  the  half-way  reformer  calls 
Utopia.  But  in  1871  they  are  discussing 
whether  or  not  the  reformers  shall  falsify  the 
returns;  in  1894  they  are  discussing  whether 
or  not  they  shall  expose  fraud  in  their  own 
camp. 

The  men  engaged  in  all  these  struggles 
are  in  perfect  ignorance  that  they  are  really 
leading  a  religious  reaction.  They  think 
that  since  they  are  in  politics  the  doctrines 
of  compromise  apply.  They  are  drawn  into 
politics  by  conscience,  but  once  there,  they 
have  only  their  business  training  to  guide 
them, — a  training  in  the  art  of  subserving 
material  interests.  Now  if  a  piece  of  your 
land  has  an  uncertain  boundary,  you  have  a 
right  to  compromise  on  any  theory  you  like, 
because  you  own  the  land.  But  if  you  start 
out  with  the  sole  and  avowed  purpose  of 
7 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

upholding  honesty  in  politics,  and  you  up- 
hold anything  else  or  subserve  any  other 
interest  whatever,  you  are  a  deceiver.  When 
you  began  you  did  not  say  "  I  stand  for  a 
readjustment  of  political  interests.  There 
will  be  a  continuation  of  many  abuses  under 
my  administration,  to  be  sure;  but  I  hope 
they  will  not  be  quite  so  bad  as  heretofore. 
I  shall  not  insist  on  the  absolutely  unselfish 
conduct  of  my  office.  It  is  not  practical." 
If  you  had  said  this,  you  might  have  got  the 
friendly  support  of  a  few  doctrinaires.  But 
you  would  never  have  got  the  support  and 
approval  of  the  great  public.  You  would 
not  have  been  elected.  And  therefore  you 
did  not  say  it.  On  the  contrary,  what  our 
reformers  do  is  this:  They  begin,  before 
election,  by  promising  an  absolutely  pure 
administration.  They  make  proclamations 
of  a  new  era,  and  after  they  have  secured  a 
certain  following  they  proceed  to  chaffer  over 
how  much  honesty  they  will  demand  and 
how  much  take,  as  if  they  were  rescuing 
property. 

These  men  are,  then,  in  their  desires  a 
part  of  the  future,  and  in  their  practices  of 
the  past.  Their  desires  move  society  for- 
ward, their  practices  set  it  back ;  and  so  we 
have  moved  forward  by  jolts,  until,  like  a 
8 


ELECTION    TIME 

people  emerging  from  the  deep  sea,  the 
water  looks  clearer  above  our  heads  and  we 
can  almost  see  the  sky. 

Every  advance  has  cost  great  effort.  It 
took  as  much  courage  for  a  Mugwump  to 
renounce  his  party  allegiance  in  1884  as  it 
does  now  for  a  man  to  denounce  both  national 
parties  as  dens  of  thieves.  It  took  as  much 
hard  thinking  some  years  ago  for  the  leaders 
of  the  Reform  Democrats  to  cut  loose  from 
Tammany  Hall  as  it  does  now  for  the  Inde- 
pendent to  see  that  there  is  in  all  our  poli- 
tics only  one  machine,  held  together  by  all 
the  bosses  and  their  heelers,  and  that  the 
whole  thing  must  be  attacked  at  once. 

How  gradual  has  been  the  process  of 
emancipation  from  intellectual  bondage! 
How  inevitably  people  are  limited  by  the 
terms  in  which  they  think!  A  generation 
of  men  has  been  consumed  by  the  shibboleth 
"reform  within  the  party,"— a  generation 
of  educated  and  right-minded  men,  who 
accomplished  in  their  day  much  good,  and 
left  the  country  better  than  they  found  it, 
but  are  floating  to-day  like  hulks  in  the 
trough  of  the  sea  of  politics,  because  all 
their  mind  and  all  their  energy  were  ex- 
hausted in  discovering  certain  superficial 
evils  and  in  fighting  them.  Their  analysis 
9 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

of  political  elements  left  the  deeper  causes 
mysterious.  They  did  not  see  mere  human 
nature.  They  still  treated  Republicanism 
and  Democracy  —  empty  superstitions  —  as 
ideas,  and  they  handled  with  reverence  the 
bones  of  bogus  saints,  and  the  whole  appa- 
ratus of  clap-trap  by  which  they  had  been 
governed. 

And  yet  it  is  owing  to  the  activity  of 
these  men  that  the  deeper  political  condi- 
tions became  visible.  Men  cannot  transcend 
their  own  analysis  and  see  themselves  under 
the  microscope.  The  work  we  do  trans- 
forms us  into  social  factors.  We  are  a  part 
of  the  changes  we  bring  in.  Before  we 
know  it,   we  ourselves  are  the  problem. 

The  Mugwumps  revolt  and  defeat  Blaine. 
They  strengthen  the  Democratic  party. 
They  again  revolt  and  defeat  Bryan,  and 
strengthen  the  Republican  party.  So  in 
the  little  towns  all  over  the  country,  on 
local  issues  the  Democrats  are  put  out  for 
being  dishonest,  or  the  Republicans  are  put 
out  for  being  dishonest.  Through  this  pro- 
cess the  younger  generation  has  been  led  to 
note  one  fact :  both  parties  are  dishonest. 
"Ah!  but,"  says  the  parent,  "I  am  a  good 
Democrat.  My  party  is  not  dishonest  all 
the  time.      It  needs  discipline."     It  is  too 

IO 


ELECTION    TIME 

late:  the  young  man  hates  both  parties 
equally.  He  now  looks  at  his  father,  and 
sees  in  him  a  sample  of  corrupted  intelli- 
gence, a  man  able  to  repeat  meaningless 
phrases,  and  he  draws  hope  from  the  con- 
clusion. It  was  natural  that  the  father 
should  have  been  boss-ridden  all  his  life, 
because  he  could  be  whistled  back  to  sup- 
port iniquity  by  an  appeal  to  party  loyalty. 
He  belonged  to  a  race  that  had  lost  the 
power  of  political  initiative.  They  could 
not  act  alone.  They  must  daub  themselves 
with  party  names  or  they  would  catch  cold. 
They  had  not  the  stomach  to  be  merely 
men. 

Thirty  years  ago  one-half  of  society 
thought  that  every  Democrat  was  a  rebel 
and  a  scoundrel.  The  world  to  that  society 
was  composed  of  two  classes,  —  Republi- 
cans (righteous  men),  Democrats  (villains). 
Twenty  years  of  an  almost  steady  growth 
in  the  power  of  self-government  or  of  what 
the  Germans  would  call  civic  consciousness, 
has  barely  sufficed  to  strike  off  the  adjec- 
tives, but  it  has  left  mankind  still  divided, 
as  before. 

Meanwhile  there  has  emerged  a  group  of 
men  who  see  the  whole  problem  in  a  much 
simpler    light.       These    men    have    carried 
ii 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

forward  the  analysis  which  their  fathers,  or 
let  us  say  their  elder  brothers,  had  begun, 
to  such  a  point  that  there  are  no  words  in  it 
which  are  meaningless,  no  factors  which  are 
not  reduced  to  terms  of  human  nature. 
They  did  nothing  but  add  the  last  link  to  a 
chain  of  logic.  Their  predecessors  discov- 
ered The  Machine,  and  spent  their  lives  in 
trying  to  belong  to  a  party  without  strength- 
ening its  Machine.  These  latter  men  dis- 
covered that  both  parties  were  ruled  by  the 
same  Machine.  They  see  one  issue,  and 
only  one  issue  in  American  politics,  namely, 
the  attack  on  that  Machine. 

Moreover,  these  men  have  political  initia- 
tive; that  is  to  say,  they  contemplate  creat- 
ing conditions,  and  not  merely  making 
transient  use  of  visible  conditions.  Their 
idea  is  so  simple  that  any  one  whose  mind  is 
not  warped  by  the  cant  of  party  politics 
understands  it  at   once. 

"All  this  political  corruption  is  a  unity. 
Vote  against  it  and  you  will  beat  it.  Vote 
for  any  part  of  it  and  you  strengthen  it." 
This  sounds  simple.  But  in  practice  the 
prejudices,  the  interests,  the  passions  and 
political  temperament  of  the  whole  popula- 
tion are  against  it.  Every  argument  that 
the  people  understand  is  against  this  course. 

12 


ELECTION    TIME 

Everything  that  cither  party  fears  or  hates  in 
the  other  party  is  passionately  pointed  out 
as  a  reason  against  independent  voting.  Ac- 
cording to  Republicans,  independent  vot- 
ing involves  "  allowing  Croker  to  extend  his 
rule  over  the  entire  State,"  and  "  enabling 
Tammany  Hall  to  control  the  judiciary,"  and 
"  endangering  the  cause  of  sound  money." 
According  to  Democrats,  it  involves  the 
encouraging  of  Trusts,  Tariffs,  Pensions,  Ex- 
pansion and  foreign  conquest.  According  to 
both  Democrats  and  Republicans,  independ- 
ent voting  is  "  voting  in  the  air,"  and  is  at  odds 
with  the  spirit  of  our  institutions,  which  con- 
template two  parties  and  no  more.  And, 
finally,  every  one  condemns  the  independent 
because  he  violates  that  thumb  rule  which 
slovenly  thinkers  regard  as  a  summary  of 
all  political  philosophy,  "  Between  two  evils 
choose  the  least." 

Now  the  answer  to  all  these  arguments  is 
that  they  are  the  merest  mirage.  It  makes 
no  difference  which  of  the  two  evils,  Piatt  or 
Croker,  has  the  name  of  ruling  the  State.  At 
present  they  divide  the  rule  between  them. 
They  can  do  no  more.  There  is  no  argu- 
ment that  can  be  used  against  Tammany 
Hall  which  is  powerful  enough  to  make  the 
Republican  Ring  trustworthy.  There  is  no 
*3 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

argument  against  Expansion  so  excessively- 
convincing  that  it  changes  the  moral  charac- 
ter of  the  Democratic  Party.  These  learned 
arguments  are  useless,  ludicrous,  pathetic, 
irrational,  impotent,  contemptible.  They 
do  but  distract  us  from  the  real  issue  — 
which  is  personal  corruption.  Where  shall 
a  man  cast  his  vote  against  it?  If  I  turn  out 
McKinley  because  he  bleeds  the  natives,  I 
put  in  a  Democrat  to  bleed  the  natives.  If 
the  whitewashing  of  Alger  arouses  public 
indignation,  Tammany  Hall  feeds  at  the 
trough.  If  Croker's  control  of  the  judiciary 
arouses  popular  indignation,  Piatt's  pigs 
feed  at  the  trough.  As  for  sound  money,  we 
have  already  elected  one  Congress  on  the 
issue  in  1895,  just  as  in  1892  we  elected  a 
Congress  on  the  tariff  issue.  What  was 
done?  Why,  in  each  case  that  was  done 
which  the  ring  wanted  done, —  nothing. 

Which  national  party  stands  for  an  idea 
to-day?  The  only  shadow  of  reason  for 
believing  that  either  does,  is  that  the  Re- 
publicans cried  sound  money  and  won. 
They  have  done  nothing.  Had  Bryan  won, 
he  would  have  done  nothing,  could  have 
done  nothing. 

There  are  no  issues  in  American  politics 
save  this  one  issue  of  common  honesty. 
14 


ELECTION    TIME 

You  cannot  throw  an  issue  into  this  whirl- 
pool of  vice,  for  your  issue  turns  to  cash  by 
the  contact.  We  need  not  waste  our  time 
reading  the  platforms  drawn  by  Piatt  and 
Croker.  We  must  not  vote  for  any  man  who 
does  not  go  into  public  life  as  their  enemy, 
because  we  know  that  in  so  far  as  he  is  not 
their  enemy  he  is  ours.  As  for  these  dread- 
ful consequences  that  are  always  about  to 
follow  from  a  refusal  to  support  one  end  of 
the  iniquity,  they  do  not  follow.  We  have 
the  evils  now.  We  are  at  the  worst.  The 
powers  of  darkness  may  conspire  and  heap  all 
in  ruins,  but  they  must  not  prevent  us  from 
beginning  upon  a  constructive  line  to  draw 
together  and  build  up  the  powers  of  light. 

Nor  is  there  the  smallest  distinction 
either  in  the  evil  or  its  cure,  between  the 
case  of  a  village,  of  a  State,  or  of  the  whole 
nation.  Say  you  live  in  a  town;  you  can 
only  get  a  clean  school-board  by  running 
men  against  both  the  regular  parties.  There 
is  no  other  way  of  getting  rid  of  Hanna  and 
the  Presidential  Syndicate  than  by  running 
an  independent  candidate  for  the  Presidency. 
No  form  of  Bryanism  will  oust  it,  —  no  rump 
Democracy  nor  any  kind  of  Democracy. 
Democracy  is  finished.  Republicanism  is 
finished. 

i5 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

This  is  the  zero  point  of  party  loyalty. 
It  has  been  reached  very  slowly.  It  means 
open  war.  The  citizen  is  now  confronted 
with  a  third  ticket,  which  is  a  deliberate 
insult  to  both  the  others.  No  matter  what 
the  conditions,  it  is  an  appeal  which  disin- 
tegrates the  emotions  of  the  voter.  This  is 
the  very  elixir  of  reform.  People  are  forced 
to  think.  It  hurts  them.  They  cry  out 
against  those  who  create  the  dilemma,  but 
they  cannot  escape  it.  The  vote  you  poll 
will  vary.  If  the  party  war-cries  are  in- 
tense and  the  party  candidates  promise 
fairly,  very  few  men  will  see  the  point  of 
your  movement.  But  no  one  escapes  its 
influence.  Let  us  say  that  five  thousand 
vote  your  ticket.  These  are  the  only  men 
whose  response  is  scheduled.  But  the  polit- 
ical vision  of  five  hundred  thousand  has  been 
quickened.  No  atom  of  this  influence  is  lost. 
The  work  was  done  when  the  vote  was  cast. 
Even  if  it  be  not  counted  at  all,  it  will  show 
in  every  political  camp  in  the  near  future. 

But  do  you  ever  have  outward  success? 
Does  the  time  ever  come  when  the  standards 
of  every  one  are  so  high  that  the  parties 
themselves  present  candidates  as  good  as 
your  own,  and  there  is  no  excuse  for  your 
existence?  That  depends  upon  the  trend  of 
16 


ELECTION    TIME 

the  age.  One  thing  only  is  certain,  that  by 
pursuing  this  course  you  are  doing  all  that 
you  can  do.  You  are  wasting  no  power.  No 
part  of  your  force  is  helping  the  enemy. 

After  all,  the  great  discovery  is  a  very 
simple  thing.  We  have  found,  after  many 
experiments,  that  what  we  really  want  is, 
not  the  turning  out  of  officials,  not  the  enact- 
ment of  laws,  but  the  raising  of  the  general 
standards.  The  way  to  do  this  is  to  set  up 
a  standard.  Of  course  nobody  likes  to  find 
a  foot  rule  laid  against  his  shortage.  Even 
the  vocabulary  of  the  average  man  is  attacked 
by  such  a  system.  Words  like  "courage," 
"  honesty, "  "  independence, "  "  pledge, "  "  loy- 
alty" pass  current  like  clipped  coin  in  the 
language  of  politics;  and  the  keying  up  of 
words  to  their  biblical  value  brings  out  one 
man  a  thief  and  the  next  a  hypocrite. 

All  these  civic  commotions,  great  and 
small,  that  surge  up  and  are  scatttered,  that 
form  and  reform,  the  People's  Leagues  and 
Citizens'  Unions,  are  the  altruism  of  the 
community  fighting  its  way  to  the  surface 
through  the  obstructions,  the  snares,  and 
the  oppressions  of  the  organized  world.  No 
discouragement  sets  it  back.  No  betrayal 
destroys  it.  The  people  come  forward  with 
ever  new  faith. 

2  i7 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

What  ceaseless  endeavor!  What  patient 
trial  of  various  forms  of  organization !  We 
live  in  a  society  where  egoism  is  so  thor- 
oughly organized  that  there  is  hardly  a 
flicker  of  faith  that  cannot  be  made  to  heat 
the  devil's  pot.  The  dragon  stands  ready  to 
eat  up  the  child  as  soon  as  it  shall  be  born. 
You  cannot  hitch  your  horse  to  anything 
without  helping  drag  the  juggernaut.  Be- 
fore you  know  it,  virtue  is  pocketed.  Take 
the  most  obvious  case.  The  reformers 
imagine  they  are  in  politics  and  must  win 
at  all  costs.  One  enthusiast  calls  twenty 
friends  into  a  room  and  organizes  a  club  — 
and  the  club  ties  his  hands  and  sells  out  to 
the  nearest  bidder.  Before  he  knows  it  he 
has  been  organized  back  into  Tammany  Hall. 
You  begin  with  a  call  to  arms  and  a  plan  of 
organization.  The  men  come  to  you  in  a 
moment  of  hope,  showing  every  shade  of 
intelligence,  every  stage  of  opinion, — one 
because  he  believes  in  your  candidate;  one 
because  he  hates  Tammany  Hall;  one  be- 
cause he  wants  prominence;  all  because 
they  do  not  expect  to  be  alone.  The  men 
who  volunteer  have  not  a  clear  notion  of 
what  they  are  in  for.  They  thought  it  was 
a  movement  to  clean  the  streets.  In  the 
course  of  their  campaign  it  develops  into 
18 


ELECTION    TIME 

an  attack  on  a  bank.  They  thought  it  was 
a  town  movement.  Some  stage  of  it  affects 
national  politics.  They  thought  it  was  a 
Roosevelt  movement.  It  turns  out  to  in- 
volve hostility  to  Roosevelt.  Your  muster 
shows  the  vague  hope  of  a  lot  of  men  who 
are  utterly  incompetent,  undisciplined, 
ignorant.  They  arc  merchants,  lawyers, 
doctors,  professors,  clergymen,  the  respecta- 
bility and  intelligence  of  the  town;  and  so 
far  as  self-government  goes  they  are  the  tat- 
tered children  of  tyranny.  Good  God,  what 
an  army!  At  the  first  trumpet  they  scatter. 
One  sells  out,  one  recants,  one  disappears. 
They  are  anywhere  and  nowhere,  a  ship  of 
fools,  a  barnyard.  The  execution  of  the  one 
idea  for  which  they  were  brought  together 
has  scattered  them  like  sheep. 

Let  us  take  another  case.  You  think  that 
what  is  needed  is  to  raise  a  standard.  You 
call  your  twenty  friends  about  you.  They 
are  not  corrupt.  Nevertheless,  let  us  see 
who  they  will  be.  We  are  not  dealing  with 
an  imaginary  community,  but  with  American 
citizens  as  they  exist,  with  men  every  one 
of  whom  trusts  his  instincts  to  a  different 
extent.  Each  man  believes  in  principle  in 
the  abstract,  but  thinks  it  is  sometimes 
hopeless  to  be  severely  virtuous  in  politics. 
*9 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

This  "sometimes"  is  the  crux.  "Is  it  the 
time?  Is  this  the  year?  Can  you  do  it  this 
way  ?  "  Now,  of  course,  it  is  always  the  year. 
It  is  never  hopeless.  Absolute  honesty  is 
always  the  way.  But  an  age  of  corruption 
destroys  faith.  This  is  the  essential  injury. 
This  is  the  disease.  You  yourself  have  a 
little  stronger  belief,  a  little  more  political 
enterprise  than  your  twenty  friends.  Other- 
wise it  would  be  they  who  were  summoning 
you  to  a  conference.  It  is  certain  that  their 
joint  wisdom  will  result  in  action  less  radi- 
cal than  you  believe  in.  They  outvote  you 
in  council.  The  standard  they  set  up  is  not 
absolute.  But  this  outcome  will  prevent 
you  from  making  your  point  at  all.  If  you 
are  to  back  your  friends  up  publicly  and  are 
honest  yourself,  all  you  can  say  will  be, 
"Here's  a  makeshift."  Now,  the  public 
instinct  understands  this  very  well  already. 
Ten  per  cent  of  your  own  faith  you  have 
compromised.  It  has  cost  you  ninety  per 
cent  of  your  educational  power;  for  the 
heart  of  man  will  respond  only  to  a  true 
thing. 

What   is  it  that  has  led  you  to  compro- 
mise ?    Why,  the  age  you  live  in.    You  your- 
self, being  afraid  to  stand  alone,  have  dipped 
your  flag,  with  the  best  intentions,  because 
20 


ELECTION    TIME 

you  cannot  see  that  any  other  course  is  prac- 
ticable. Yet  you  yourself  can  keep  your  own 
intellectual  integrity  only  at  the  price  of 
destroying  your  own  handiwork.  If  you  do 
not  destroy  it,  you  are  a  hypocrite.  Here 
in  the  room  with  you  were  twenty  men,  the 
very  flower  of  the  idealism  of  the  town,  not 
chosen  by  accident,  but  coming  together  by 
natural  selection.  Twenty  more  like  them 
do  not  exist  in  the  community,  for  their 
activity  would  have  revealed  them.  And 
yet  there  was  not  found  faith  enough  among 
these  to  set  up  an  absolute  standard.  Nay, 
they  hang  on  your  arms  and  prevent  you 
from  raising  one.  If  you  are  to  do  it,  you 
must  do  it  alone.  Then  these  men  will  be 
the  first  to  denounce  you ;  for  your  act  damns 
them.  You  can  only  be  true  to  the  public 
conscience  by  rebuking  your  friends.  If 
you  fail  to  do  this,  your  banner  is  submerged. 

Let  us  consider  the  cause  of  this  weakness 
in  Reform  organizations.  You  wish  to 
appeal  to  the  people  with  as  good  a  show  of 
names  as  you  can.  And  so  you  get  a  lot  of 
well-known  men  to  indorse  you.  This  is 
considered  practical.     Let  us  see  if  it  is. 

We  are  fighting  Tammany  Hall.  But  no 
one  will  for  an  instant  admit  that  every 
Tammany  man   is   dishonest.     The   corrup- 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

tion  we  started  out  to  correct  was  a  cor- 
ruption of  the  intelligence,  a  bad  habit,  a 
defect  of  vision.  The  same  defect  keeps 
Republicans  in  line  for  Piatt,  because  he  is 
the  Party,  a  recognized  agent  of  the  com- 
munity. The  same  defect  prevents  a  just 
man  from  joining  a  new  movement  unless 
Banker  Jones  is  leading  it.  The  habit  of 
the  community  is  to  rely  on  some  one  else 
to  govern  them.  No  man  trusts  himself. 
The  Machine,  upon  analysis,  turns  out  to 
be  a  lack  of  self-reliance.  Wherever  you 
see  a  man  who  gives  some  one  else's  corrup- 
tion, some  one  else's  prejudice  as  a  reason 
for  not  taking  action  himself,  you  see  a 
cog  in  The  Machine  that  governs  us.  The 
proof  of  it  is  that  he  will  dissuade  you  from 
striking  the  iniquity.  He  will  explain  that 
you  can't  try  it  without  doing  more  harm 
than  good.  You  will  find  that  at  every  point 
of  defence,  from  the  arguments  of  Mr. 
Croker  himself  to  the  arguments  of  some 
sainted  college  president,  the  reasons  given 
are  identical.  I  cannot  find  any  one  who 
defends  stealing.  They  only  deprecate 
action  as  being  inexpedient.  Now,  then,  if 
I  ask  a  voter  to  join  my  organization,  and 
use  as  a  bait  an  appeal  to  this  very  weakness 
—  his  reliance  upon  other  men's  opinion  — 


ELECTION    TIME 

can  I  hope  to  make  much  headway?  I  am 
taking  in  just  so  much  of  Tammany  Hall. 
My  whole  body  becomes  an  adjunct  of 
Tammany,  in  the  same  sense  that  Mr. 
Piatt's  machine  is  an  adjunct.  I  am  Croker's 
last  outpost.  I  stand  there  calling  myself 
reform,  and  yet  I  do  not  act.  Some  one 
else  must  now  come  forward  and  try  his 
hand. 

This  process  of  ebullition,  and  thereupon 
stagnation,  has  happened  again  and  again.  I 
suppose  there  are  a  dozen  extant  wrecks  of 
reform  political  organizations  in  the  city. 
Many  people  have  despaired  altogether. 
They  think  it  is  a  law  of  God  that  political 
organizations  become  corrupt  in  the  second 
year.  The  experience  is  entirely  due  to  the 
persistent  putting  of  new  wine  into  old 
bottles.  In  their  names  and  hopes  these 
bodies  have  stood  for  purity,  but  in  their 
membership  they  have,  even  in  their  incep- 
tion, stood  for  prejudice.  Then,  too,  the 
bottles  bore  good  labels,  and  bad  wine  was 
soon  poured  into  them.  A  political  organi- 
zation is  a  transferable  commodity.  You 
could  not  find  a  better  way  of  killing  virtue 
than  by  packing  it  into  one  of  these  contrap- 
tions which  some  gang  of  thieves  is  sure  to 
find  useful. 

23 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

The  short  lesson  that  comes  out  of  long 
experience  in  political  agitation  is  some- 
thing like  this:  #//the  motive  power  in  all 
of  these  movements  is  the  instinct  of  reli- 
gious feeling.  All  the  obstruction  comes 
from  attempting  to  rely  on  anything  else. 
Conciliation  is  the  enemy.  It  is  just  as 
impossible  to  help  reform  by  conciliating 
prejudice  as  it  is  by  buying  votes.  Preju- 
dice is  the  enemy.  Whoever  is  not  for  you 
is  against  you. 

What,  then,  must  the  enthusiast  do  in 
the  way  of  organization?  Let  him  go  ahead 
and  do  some  particular  thing,  and  ask  the 
public  to  help  him  do  it.  He  will  thus  get 
behind  him  whatever  force  exists  at  that 
especial  time  for  that  especial  purpose.  It 
may  not  be  much ;  but  no  amount  of  letter- 
heads and  great  seals  will  increase  it.  Let 
him  abandon  written  constitutions.  Let 
him  not  be  bound  by  a  vote  nor  seek  to  bind 
others  by  a  vote.  If  you  have  formal  pro- 
cedure, you  are  tied  up,  for  you  will  then 
have  to  convert  six  tailors  into  apostles  be- 
fore you  can  get  at  the  public.  Content 
yourself  more  modestly.  See  a  friend  or  two 
and  tell  them  what  you  intend  to  do.  If  they 
won't  help  you,  do  it  alone.  Do  not  think 
you  are  wasting  your  time,  even  if  no  one 
24 


ELECTION    TIME 

joins  you.  The  prejudice  against  the  indi- 
vidual is  part  of  the  evil  you  are  fighting. 
If  you  keep  on  in  a  consistent  line  of  action, 
people  will  come  to  you  one  by  one,  and 
your  group  will  grow  into  a  sort  of  centre  of 
influence.  There  will  result  a  unity  of 
method  as  well  as  of  aim,  which,  as  your 
purposes  become  understood,  will  enable 
you  to  act  with  the  speed  of  thought  and 
the  force  of  an  avalanche.  One  great  merit 
of  this  method  will  be  that  your  whole 
policy  will  remain  an  enigma  to  every  one 
except  those  who  really  want  what  you  want, 
namely,  to  raise  the  general  standards. 
Only  such  men  will  seek  you  out.  Any  one 
else  is  a  danger.  Thus  your  organization 
will  grow  slowly,  but  will  remain  uncap- 
turable,  un-get-at-able,  an  influence,  a 
menace,  a  standard.  As  fast  as  adherents 
appear,  you  can  set  up  centre  after  centre  of 
enlightenment,  preparatory  to  your  cam- 
paigns ;  debates,  pamphlets,  correspondence, 
the  battery  of  agitation.  And  in  the  mean 
time  the  benefit  done  to  the  workers  them- 
selves is  worth  all  the  pains. 

By  adopting  formal  machinery  you  would 

not  only  organize  the  wrong  people  in,  but 

you    would  organize  the    right    people   out. 

New  York  City  is  full  of  men  whose  passion 

25 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

for  educating  can  find  no  vent  in  politics, 
because  politics  are  corrupt,  and  who  run 
civic  leagues,  night-schools,  lyceums,  and 
people's  institutes.  They  are  at  work  in 
your  cause  although  they  call  it  by  different 
names.  All  this  zeal  is  at  your  disposal  if 
you  will  only  leave  your  office  doors  open 
and  do  something  to  deserve  its  support. 
Do  not  adopt  a  scheme  that  excludes  these 
men.  You  cannot  impress  them  into  your 
army,  but  you  do  not  need  to  impress  them, — 
only  to  know  them  personally.  You  cannot 
make  them  district  captains,  but  they  are 
district  captains  already. 

"But,"  you  say,  "are  not  the  votes  of 
your  twenty  friends  as  valuable  as  your 
own  ?  Whence  this  egoism  ? "  It  is  not 
egoism.  I  am  ready  to  follow  any  one  who 
wants  to  do  this  particular  thing,  that  is, 
make  an  appeal  to  absolute  unselfishness,  at 
no  point  to  conciliate  any  one.  "But  this 
is  anarchy:  every  man  his  own  party."  On 
the  contrary,  it  is  consolidation;  for  should 
two  men  arise,  proposing  this  course,  they 
would  coalesce  at  once. 

"But,"    you    say,   "who   is   to  do  all  the 

work?     How  are  you   to  get  men  to  come 

forward    unless    you    give    them    tangible, 

formulated    doctrines,    papers   to  sign,   and 

26 


ELECTION    TIME 

words  to  mumble?  "  The  answer  is  that  the 
men  who  do  the  work  in  reform  campaigns 
do  not  need  these  things.  Literature  and 
doctrines  you  will  undoubtedly  produce.  It 
is  not  necessary  for  the  effective  distribution 
of  them,  that  you  should  adopt  the  parade  of 
American  party  discipline. 

Organization,  head-quarters,  and  a  distri- 
bution of  labor  you  must  develop.  But 
you  must  not  have  them  on  paper  faster 
than  they  exist  in  reality.  "But,"  you  say, 
"this  is  not  representative  government. 
Where  are  your  convention,  your  argument, 
your  vote,  your  majority,  your  loyalty? 
Our  people  must  have  these  things." 

The  answer  is  that,  in  spite  of  their  views 
on  representative  government,  our  people 
still  remain  human  beings.  As  fast  as  they 
find  themselves  spiritually  represented  by 
some  person  or  body,  they  follow  that  influ- 
ence. It  is  representative  government,  but 
it  represents  only  the  positive  and  aspiring 
part  of  the  community, — the  part  which 
never  gets  represented  under  your  system, 
because  that  system  insists  upon  alloying  it 
with  other  elements  and  ruining  its  power. 
It  is  educational  activity  in  the  purest  form. 
By  what  other  means  can  you  speak  to  the 
whole  people  at  once  in  the  language  of 
27 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

action  ?  By  what  other  means  can  you 
reach  the  conscience  of  the  unknown  man, 
who  has  not  touched  politics  for  twenty 
years  because  he  could  take  no  part  in  it, 
because  he  did  not  understand  it,  — the  dis- 
franchised, scattered,  and  dumb  men  on 
whose  voice  the  future  waits? 

Consider  what  you  are  trying  to  do.  A 
party  under  control  of  a  machine  is  held 
together  by  an  appeal  to  self-interest.  Its 
caucuses,  affiliations,  resources,  methods  are 
constructed  on  that  principle.  Your  body, 
whose  aim  is  to  increase  the  unselfishness  and 
intellect  of  your  fellow-citizens,  must  be  held 
together  at  every  point  by  self-sacrifice. 

If  the  reform  body  shall  blindly  do  just 
the  opposite  of  what  a  party  does,  it  will 
pursue  practical  politics.  The  regular  party 
is  in  theory  representative  of  enrolled 
voters.  You  represent  the  sentiment  of 
undiscovered  people.  The  party  appeals  to 
old  forces  and  extant  conditions.  You 
appeal  to  new  feelings  and  new  voters.  The 
party  offers  a  gift  to  every  adherent.  You 
must  offer  him  nothing  but  labor.  That  is 
your  protection  against  traitors.  The  party 
accords  every  man  the  weight  of  his  vote  in 
its  counsels.  You  must  give  him  nothing 
but  the  influence  of  his  mind. 
28 


ELECTION    TIME 

"But,"  you  shout,  "this  is  not  politics. 
You  can  never  hold  men  together  without 
bonds."  The  fact  is  otherwise.  There  is 
some  force  at  work  in  this  town  which,  year 
after  year,  brings  forward  groups  of  men  who 
proclaim  a  new  dispensation.  They  are,  in 
so  far  as  they  have  any  cohesion,  held  to- 
gether without  bonds  now.  All  formal 
bonds  will  chain  them  to  the  past.  For 
electrical  force  you  must  adopt  electrical 
machinery;  for  moral  force,  moral  bonds. 
All  this  political  system  is  the  harness  for 
the  wrong  passion.  Every  scrap  of  it  im- 
prisons your  power.  The  average  American 
citizen  is  slow  to  see  that  you  can  exercise 
political  influence  without  the  current 
machinery.  This  is  a  part  of  The  Machine 
in  his  brain.  He  cannot  see  the  operation 
of  law  by  which  virtue  always  tells.  But 
his  ignorance  does  not  affect  the  operation 
of  that  law,   even  upon  himself. 

This  elaborate  analysis  of  just  how  the 
force  of  feeling  in  yourself  can  best  be  used 
politically,  is,  after  all,  only  an  instance  of 
a  general  law.  The  shortest  path  between 
two  points  always  turns  out  to  be  a  straight 
line.  People  who  believe  in  the  complexity 
of  life,  and  have  theories  about  crooked 
lines,  want  something  else  beside  moral 
29 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

influence.  They  want  influence  through 
office,  or  influence  toward  special  ends,  or 
influence  with  particular  persons.  "Can't 
you  see  you  are  destroying  your  influence?  " 
they  cry,  while  every  stroke  is  telling. 
"A  thinks  you  are  a  lunatic."  Praise  God. 
"B  has  withdrawn  his  subscription."  I 
had  not  hoped  for  this  so  soon.  "  But  he 
has  joined  Piatt."  You  misstate  the  case. 
He  was  always  with  Piatt,  but  now  he  has 
revealed  it.  These  refractory  molecules  are 
breaking  up.  See  the  lines  of  force  begin 
to  show  a  clean  cleavage.  Ten  thousand 
intelligences  now  see  the  man  for  what 
he  is. 

At  what  point  in  the  progress  of  this 
movement  will  people  begin  to  see  that  it  is 
practical  politics  of  the  most  effective  kind? 
Some  people  see  it  now.  The  first  people 
to  feel  the  strain  are  the  men  whose  liveli- 
hood depends  on  the  outcome.  The  last 
illustration  of  this  was  given  in  Roosevelt's 
campaign  against  Van  Wyck  in  New  York 
State.  In  this  case,  as  generally  happens, 
the  real  battle  was  fought  in  committee 
rooms  before  the  forces  were  in  the  field. 
It  was  the  struggle  for  position.  Roosevelt 
was  to  be  Republican  candidate  for  gover- 
nor, and  was  sure  of  election.  The  fight 
30 


ELECTION    TIME 

came  over  the  minor  offices.  Our  New 
York  form  of  ballot  practically  forces  a  man 
to  vote  for  a  "straight"  ticket,  and  half  a 
dozen  independents  put  up  a  complete  ticket 
with  Roosevelt  at  the  head  of  it.  Their 
purpose  was  to  prevent  the  Republicans 
from  using  Roosevelt's  military  popularity 
to  sweep  into  office  a  lot  of  henchmen. 
Within  ten  days  the  Republican  hench- 
men all  over  the  State  were  taken  with 
convulsions.  Every  crank  of  the  Machine 
trembled.  It  turned  its  awful  power  upon 
Roosevelt  and  ordered  him  to  get  off  the 
Independent  ticket.  He  obeyed  and  pro- 
tected the  henchmen.  The  episode  illus- 
trates the  practical  power  of  a  few 
independents  who  can  act  quickly.  The 
panic  in  the  Republican  camp  was  entirely 
justified.  If  three  tickets  had  remained  in 
the  field  with  Roosevelt  at  the  head  of  two 
of  them,  thousands  of  Democrats  and  thou- 
sands of  Republicans  would  have  voted  for 
the  Reform  ticket.  The  Republican  ticket 
would  have  polled  merely  the  dyed-in-the- 
wool  machine  Republicans. 

The  rumpus  among  the  Republican  heelers 

—  following  so  slight  a  cause  as  the  action 

of  five   or   six  citizens  who    took    the    field 

with  a  ticket  of  their  own  —  resembled  the 

31 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

action  of  a  geyser  when  a  cake  of  soap  is 
thrown  into  it  —  rumbling  —  followed  by 
terrific  vomiting. 

A  little  practical  discipline  among  the  re- 
formers is  all  that  is  required  to  make  them 
formidable, — the  discipline  of  experience, 
of  acting  together,  of  personal  trust.  This 
is  to  be  acquired  only  in  the  field  of  action. 

It  is  encouraging  to  find  how  small  a  body 
of  men  it  takes  —  even  at  the  present 
moment  —  to  upset  the  calculations  of  the 
politicians.  The  force  that  made  the  Re- 
publicans afraid  did  not  lie  in  the  parcel  of 
men  who  threw  in  the  soap.  It  came  from 
the  great  public.  The  episode  showed  that 
the  Republicans  were  afraid  to  appeal  to  the 
country.  They  knew  that  their  cabal  was 
almost  as  much  hated  as  Tammany  Hall. 

There  is  always  great  difficulty  in  this 
world  as  to  who  shall  bell  the  cat;  but  con- 
ventions of  mice  do  not  further  the  matter. 
The  way  to  do  it  is  for  a  parcel  of  mice  to 
take  their  political  lives  in  their  hands  and 
proceed  to  do  it. 

The  real  meaning  of  all  these  movements 

will   not   be   perceived  till    their  work  has 

been  done.     As  history,  the  cause  and  course 

of  them  will  be  so  plain  that  a  word  will 

32 


ELECTION    TIME 

suffice  to  explain  them.  In  the  light  of 
history  it  will  be  clear  that  the  improvement 
in  the  personnel  of  our  public  life  was  due 
to  the  demands  of  the  public  —  expressed  in 
citizen's  movements.  We  have  already 
reached  a  point  where  neither  party  dares 
appeal  to  the  public  —  as  they  did  ten  years 
ago  —  on  purely  party  grounds.  Roosevelt 
and  Van  Wyck  both  claimed  to  be  men  supe- 
rior to  the  average  partisan.  The  advance 
of  political  thought  has  already  made  the 
dullest  man  perceive  the  Machine  within  his 
own  party,  and  every  day  spreads  the  news 
that  there  is  only  a  single  machine  in  all 
our  politics.  The  destruction  of  this  machine 
will  not  be  like  the  destruction  of  the  mon- 
asteries by  Henry  VIII.,  but  it  will  consist 
in  the  substitution  of  new  timber  for  old  in 
the  parties  themselves. 

Any  one  who  looks  for  an  expulsion  of 
Tammany  Hall  like  the  expulsion  of  the 
Moors  from  Spain,  will  be  disappointed. 
There  will  always  be  a  Tammany  Hall. 
But  it  will  be  run  by  respectable  men,  who 
will  look  back  with  wonder  and  disgust  upon 
this  period,  and  who  will  give  the  public  an 
honest  administration  because  the  public 
has  demanded  it. 


33 


II 

BETWEEN   ELECTIONS 

An  election  is  like  a  flash  of  lightning  at 
midnight.  You  get  an  instantaneous  pho- 
tograph of  what  every  man  is  doing.  You 
see  his  real  relation  toward  his  government. 
But  an  election  happens  only  once  a  year. 
Government  goes  on  day  and  night. 

It  is  hard  breaking  down  the  popular  fal- 
lacy that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  "politics," 
governed  by  peculiar  conditions,  which  must 
be  understood  and  respected ;  that  the  whole 
thing  is  a  mystic  avocation,  run  as  a  trade 
by  high  priests  and  low  priests,  and  is  remote 
from  our  daily  life.  Our  system  of  party 
government  has  been  developed  with  the 
aim  of  keeping  the  control  in  the  hands  of 
professionals.  Technicalities  have  been 
multiplied,  and  the  rules  of  the  game  have 
become  more  and  more  complex.  There 
exists,  consequently,  an  unformulated  belief 
that  the  corruption  of  politics  is  something 
by  itself.  Yet  there  probably  never  was  a 
34 


BETWEEN    ELECTIONS 

civilization  where  the  mesh  of  all  powers  and 
interests  was  so  close.  It  is  like  the  inter- 
locking of  roots  in  a  swamp.  Such  density 
and  cohesion  were  never  seen  in  any  epoch, 
such  a  mat  and  tangle  of  personalities,  where 
every  man  is  tied  up  with  the  fibres  of  every 
other.  If  you  take  an  axe  or  a  saw,  and  cut 
a  clean  piece  out  of  it  anywhere,  you  will 
maim  every  member  of  society.  How  idle, 
then,  even  to  think  of  politics  as  a  subject 
by  itself,  or  of  the  corruptions  of  the  times 
as  localized ! 

Politics  gives  what  the  chemists  call  a 
"mirror,"  and  shows  the  ingredients  in  the 
average  man's  composition.  But  you  must 
take  your  mind  off  politics  if  you  want  to 
understand  America.  You  must  take  up 
the  lives  of  individuals  and  follow  them  out, 
as  they  play  against  each  other  in  counter- 
point. As  soon  as  you  do  this  you  will  not 
be  able  to  determine  where  politics  begins 
and  where  it  stops.  It  is  all  politics:  it  is 
all  social  intercourse:  it  is  all  business. 
Any  square  foot  of  this  soil  will  give  you 
the  whole  fauna  and  flora  of  the  land. 
Where  will  you  put  in  your  wedge  of  reform  ? 
There  is  not  a  cranny  anywhere.  The 
mass  is  like  crude  copper  ore  that  cannot  be 
blasted.  It  blows  out  the  charge. 
35 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

We  think  that  political  agitation  must 
show  political  results.  This  is  like  trying 
to  alter  the  shape  of  a  shadow  without  touch- 
ing its  object.  The  hope  is  not  only  mis- 
taken, it  is  absurd.  The  results  to  be 
obtained  from  reform  movements  cannot 
show  in  the  political  field  till  they  have 
passed  through  the  social  world. 

"But,  after  all,  what  you  want  is  votes,  is 
it  not?"  "It  would  be  so  encouraging  to 
see  virtue  win,  that  everybody  would  vote 
for  you  thereafter.  Why  don't  you  manage 
it  somehow? "  This  sort  of  talk  is  the  best 
record  of  incompetence  which  corruption 
has  imprinted.  Enlighten  this  class  and 
you  have  saved  the  Republic.  Why,  my 
friend,  you  are  so  lost,  you  are  so  much  a 
mere  product  of  tyranny  that  you  do  not 
know  what  a  vote  is.  True,  we  want  votes, 
but  the  votes  we  want  must  be  cast  sponta- 
neously. We  do  not  want  them  so  badly  as 
to  buy  them.  A  vote  is  only  important 
because  it  is  an  opinion.  Even  a  dictator 
cannot  force  opinions  upon  his  subjects  by 
six  months  of  rule;  and  yet  the  complaint 
is  that  decency  gets  few  votes  after  a  year 
of  effort  by  a  handful  of  radicals  who  are 
despised  by  the  community.  We  only  enter 
the  field  of  politics  because  we  can  there  get 
36 


BETWEEN    ELECTIONS 

a  hearing.  The  candidates  in  reform  move- 
ments are  tools.  They  are  like  crowbars 
that  break  open  the  mind  of  the  age.  They 
cannot  be  dodged,  concealed,  or  laughed 
away.  Every  one  is  aroused  from  his 
lethargy  by  seeing  a  real  man  walk  on  the 
scene,  amid  all  the  stage  properties  and 
marionettes  of  conventional  politics.  "  No 
fair !  "  the  people  cry.  They  do  not  vote  for 
him,  of  course,  but  they  talk  about  the  por- 
tent with  a  vigor  no  mere  doctrine  could  call 
forth,  and  the  discussion  blossoms  at  a  later 
date  into  a  new  public  spirit,  a  new  and 
genuine  demand  for  better  things. 

It  is  apparent  that  between  the  initial 
political  activity  of  reformers  and  their  ulti- 
mate political  accomplishments,  there  must 
intervene  the  real  agitation,  the  part  that 
does  the  work,  which  goes  on  in  the  brains 
and  souls  of  individual  men,  and  which  can 
only  be  observed  in  social  life,  in  manners 
and  conversation. 

Now  let  us  take  up  the  steps  by  which,  in 
practical  life,  the  reaction  is  set  going. 
Enter  the  nearest  coterie  of  radicals  and 
listen  to  the  quarrel.  Reformers  pro- 
verbially disagree,  and  'their  sects  mince 
themselves  almost  to  atoms. '  With  us  the 
quarrel  always  arises  over  the  same  point. 
37 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

"  Can  we  afford,  under  these  particular  cir- 
cumstances, to  tell  the  exact  truth?"  I 
have  never  known  a  reform  movement  in 
which  this  discussion  did  not  rage  from 
start  to  finish,  nor  have  I  known  one  where 
any  other  point  was  involved.  You  are  a 
citizens'  committee.  The  parties  offer  to 
give  you  half  a  loaf.  Well  and  good.  But 
this  is  not  their  main  object.  They  want 
you  to  call  it  a  whole  loaf.  They  want  to 
dissipate  your  agitation  by  getting  you  to 
tell  the  public  that  you  are  satisfied.  What 
they  hate  is  the  standard.  The  war  between 
you  and  them  is  a  spiritual  game  of  chess. 
They  must  get  you  to  say  they  are  right. 
It  is  their  only  means  of  retaining  their 
power. 

Thus  the  apple  of  discord  falls  into  the 
Reform  camp.  Half  its  members  take  the 
bait.  In  New  York  City  our  politics  have 
been  so  picturesque,  the  pleas  of  the  politi- 
cian so  shallow,  the  lies  demanded  from  the 
reformers  so  obvious,  that  the  eternal  prin- 
ciples of  the  situation  have  been  revealed  in 
their  elemental  simplicity.  It  is  just  be- 
cause the  impulse  towards  better  things 
carries  no  material  content  —  we  do  not  want 
any  particular  thing,  but  we  want  an  im- 
provement in  everything  —  it  is  just  because 
33 


BETWEEN    ELECTIONS 

the  whole  movement  is  purely  moral,  that 
the  same  questions  always  arise. 

We  ought  not  to  grieve  over  the  discus- 
sion, over  the  heart-burn  and  heated  argu- 
ment that  start  from  a  knot  of  radicals  and 
run  through  the  community,  setting  men 
against  each  other.  The  quarrel  in  the 
executive  committee  of  this  reform  body  is 
the  initiative  of  much  wholesome  life.  They 
are  no  more  responsible  for  it,  they  can  no 
more  avoid  it,  the  community  can  no  more 
advance  to  higher  standards  before  they  have 
had  it,  than  a  child  can  skate  before  it  can 
walk. 

The  executive  committee  is  discussing 
the  schools.  In  consequence  of  a  recent 
agitation,  the  politicians  have  put  up  a  can- 
didate who  will  give  new  plumbing,  even  if 
he  does  steal  the  books,  and  the  question  is 
whether  the  School  Association  shall  indorse 
this  candidate.  If  it  does,  he  wins.  If  it 
does  not,  both  plumbing  and  books  are 
likely  to  remain  the  prey  of  the  other  party, 
and  the  Lord  knows  how  bad  that  is.  The 
fight  rages  in  the  committee,  and  some  sin- 
cere old  gentleman  is  prophesying  typhoid. 

The  practical  question  is:  "Do  you  want 
good  plumbing,  or  do  you  want  the  truth  ? " 
You  cannot  have  both  this  year.  If  the 
39 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

association  goes  out  and  tells  the  public 
exactly  what  it  knows,  it  will  get  itself 
laughed  at,  insult  the  candidate,  and  elect 
his  opponent.  If  it  tells  the  truth,  it  might 
as  well  run  a  candidate  of  its  own  as  a  pro- 
test and  an  advertisement  of  that  truth.  It 
can  buy  good  plumbing  with  a  lie,  and  the 
old  gentleman  thinks  it  ought  to  do  so. 
The  reformers  are  going  to  endorse  the  can- 
didate, and  upon  their  heads  will  be  visited 
his  theft  of  the  books.  They  have  sold  out 
the  little  public  confidence  they  held.  Had 
they  stood  out  for  another  year,  under  the 
practical  regime  which  they  had  already 
endured  for  twenty,  and  had  they  devoted 
themselves  to  augmenting  the  public  inter- 
est in  the  school  question,  both  parties 
would  have  offered  them  plumbing  and 
books  to  allay  the  excitement.  The  parties 
might,  perhaps,  have  relaxed  their  grip  on 
the  whole  school  system  rather  than  meet  the 
issue. 

But  the  Association  does  not  understand 
this.  It  does  not,  as  yet,  clearly  know  its 
own  mind.  All  this  procedure,  this  going 
forward  and  back,  is  necessary.  The  com- 
munity must  pass  through  these  experiences 
before  it  discovers  that  the  shortest  road 
to  good  schools  is  truth.  A  few  men  learn 
40 


BETWEEN    ELECTIONS 

by  each  turn  of  the  wheel,  and  these  men 
tend  to  consolidate.  They  become  a  sort  of 
school  of  political  thought.  They  see  that 
they  do  not  care  a  whit  more  about  the 
schools  than  they  do  about  the  parks ;  that 
the  school  agitation  is  a  handy  way  to  make 
the  citizens  take  notice  of  maladministration 
in  all  departments;  that  the  parties  may  be 
left  to  reform  themselves,  and  to  choose  the 
most  telling  bid  for  popular  favor;  that  the 
parties  must  do  this  and  will  do  this,  in  so 
far  as  the  public  demands  it,  and  will  not 
do  it  under  any  other  circumstances. 

It  is  the  very  greatest  folly  in  the  world 
for  an  agitator  to  be  content  with  a  partial 
success.  It  destroys  his  cause.  He  fades 
instantly.  You  cannot  see  him.  He  is 
become  part  of  the  corrupt  and  contented 
public.  His  business  is  to  make  others 
demand  good  administration.  He  must 
never  reap,  but  always  sow.  Let  him  leave 
the  reaping  to  others.  There  will  be  many 
of  them,  and  their  material  accomplishments 
will  be  the  same  whether  he  endorses  them 
or  not.  If  by  chance  some  party,  some 
administration  gives  him  one  hundred  per 
cent  of  what  he  demands,  let  him  acknowl- 
edge it  handsomely;  but  he  need  not  thank 
them.  They  did  it  because  they  had  to,  or 
41 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

because   their   conscience  compelled  them. 
In  neither  case  was  it  done  for  him. 

In  other  words,  reform  is  an  idea  that 
must  be  taken  up  as  a  whole.  You  do  not 
want  any  specific  thing.  You  use  every 
issue  as  a  symbol.  Let  us  give  up  the  hope 
of  finding  any  simpler  way  out  of  it.  Let 
us  take  up  the  burden  at  its  heaviest  end, 
and  acknowledge  that  nothing  but  an  in- 
crease of  personal  force  in  every  American 
can  change  our  politics.  It  is  curious  that 
this  course,  which  is  the  shortest  cut  to  the 
millennium,  should  be  met  with  the  reproach 
that  it  puts  off  victory.  This  is  entirely 
due  to  a  defect  in  the  imagination  of  people 
who  are  dealing  with  an  unfamiliar  subject. 
We  have  to  learn  its  principles.  We  know 
that  what  we  really  want  is  all  of  virtue;  but 
it  seems  so  unreasonable  to  claim  this,  that 
we  try  to  buy  it  piecemeal, —  item,  a  school- 
house,  item,  four  parks ;  and  with  each  gain 
comes  a  sacrifice  of  principle,  disintegra- 
tion, discouragement.  Fools,  if  you  had 
asked  for  all,  you  would  have  had  this  and 
more.  We  are  defeated  by  compromise 
because,  no  matter  how  much  we  may  de- 
ceive ourselves  into  thinking  that  good  gov- 
ernment is  an  aggregate  of  laws  and  parks, 
it  is  not  true.  Good  government  is  the 
42 


BETWEEN    ELECTIONS 

outcome  of  private  virtue,  and  virtue  is  one 
thing,  — a  unit,  a  force,  a  mode  of  motion. 
It  cannot  pass  through  a  non-conductor  of 
casuistry  at  any  point.  Compromise  is  loss: 
first,  because  it  stops  the  movement,  and 
kills  energy;  second,  because  it  encourages 
the  illusion  that  the  wooden  schoolhouse  is 
good  government.  As  against  this,  you 
have  the  fact  that  some  hundreds  of  school 
children  do  get  housed  six  months  before 
they  would  have  been  housed  otherwise. 
But  this  is  like  cashing  a  draft  for  a  thousand 
pounds  with  a  dish  of  oatmeal. 

We  have,  perhaps,  followed  in  the  wake  of 
some  little  Reform  movement,  and  it  has 
left  us  with  an  insight  into  the  relation 
between  private  opinion  and  public  occur- 
rences. We  have  really  found  out  two 
things:  first,  that  in  order  to  have  better 
government,  the  talk  and  private  intelligence 
upon  which  it  rests  must  be  going  forward 
all  the  time;  and  second,  that  the  individual 
conscience,  intelligence,  or  private  will  is 
always  set  free  by  the  same  process,  —  to  wit, 
by  the  telling  of  truth.  The  identity  be- 
tween public  and  private  life  reveals  itself  the 
instant  a  man  adopts  the  plan  of  indiscrimi- 
nate truthtelling.  He  unmasks  batteries  and 
discloses  wires  at  every  dinner-party ;  he  sees 
43 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

practical  politics  in  every  law  office,  and 
social  influence  in  every  convention;  and 
wherever  he  is,  he  suddenly  finds  himself, 
by  his  own  will  or  against  it,  a  centre  of 
forces.  Let  him  blurt  out  his  opinion.  In- 
stantly there  follows  a  little  flash  of  reality. 
The  shams  drop,  and  the  lines  of  human 
influence,  the  vital  currents  of  energy,  are 
disclosed.  The  only  difference  between  a 
reform  movement,  so-called,  and  the  private 
act  of  any  man  who  desires  to  better  condi- 
tions, is  that  the  private  man  sets  one  draw- 
ing-room in  a  ferment  by  speaking  his  mind 
or  by  cutting  his  friend,  and  the  agitator  sets 
ten  thousand  in  a  ferment  by  attacking  the 
age. 

As  a  practical  matter,  the  conduct  of 
politics  depends  upon  the  dinner-table  talk 
of  men  who  are  not  in  politics  at  all.  Gov- 
ernment is  carried  on  from  moment  to  mo- 
ment by  the  people.  The  executive  is  a 
mere  hand  and  arm.  For  instance,  there  is  a 
public  excitement  about  Civil  Service  Re- 
form. A  law  is  passed  and  is  being  evaded. 
If  the  governor  is  to  set  it  up  again,  he 
must  be  sustained  by  the  public.  They 
must  follow  and  understand  the  situation 
or  the  official  is  helpless.  But  do  we  sustain 
him?  We  do  not.  We  are  half-hearted. 
44 


BETWEEN    ELECTIONS 

To  lend  power  to  his  hand  we  shall  have  to 
be  strong  men.  If  we  now  stood  ready  to 
denounce  him  for  himself  falling  short  by 
the  breadth  of  a  hair  of  his  whole  duty,  our 
support,  when  we  gave  it,  would  be  worth 
having.  But  we  are  starchless,  and  deserve 
a  starchless  service. 

What  did  you  find  out  at  the  last  meeting 
of  the  Library  Committee?  You  found  out 
that  Commissioner  Hopkins's  nephew  was 
in  the  piano  business;  hence  the  commis- 
sioner's views  on  the  music  question.  Re- 
peat it  to  the  first  man  you  meet  in  the 
street,  and  bring  it  up  at  the  next  meeting 
of  the  committee.  You  did  not  think  you 
had  much  influence  in  town  politics,  and 
hardly  knew  how  to  step  in.  Yet  the  town 
seems  to  have  no  time  for  any  other  subject 
than  your  attack  on  the  commissioner.  From 
this  point  on  you  begin  to  understand  con- 
ditions. Every  man  in  town  reveals  his  real 
character,  and  his  real  relation  to  the  town 
wickedness  and  to  the  universe  by  the  way 
he  treats  you.  You  are  beginning  to  get 
near  to  something  real  and  something  inter- 
esting. There  is  no  one  in  the  United 
States,  no  matter  how  small  a  town  he  lives 
in,  or  how  inconspicuous  he  or  she  is,  who 
does  not  have  three  invitations  a  week  to 
45 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

enter  practical  politics  by  such  a  door  as 
this.  It  makes  no  difference  whether  he 
regard  himself  as  a  scientific  man  studying 
phenomena,  or  a  saint  purifying  society;  he 
will  become  both.  There  is  no  way  to  study 
sociology  but  this.  The  books  give  no  hint 
of  what  the  science  is  like.  They  are  written 
by  men  who  do  not  know  the  world,  but  who 
go  about  gleaning  information  instead  of 
trying  experiments. 

The  first  discovery  we  make  is  that,  the 
worst  enemy  of  good  government  is  not  our 
ignorant  foreign  voter,  but  our  educated 
domestic  railroad  president,  our  prominent 
business  man,  our  leading  lawyer.  If  there 
is  any  truth  in  the  optimistic  belief  that  our 
standards  are  now  going  up,  we  shall  soon 
see  proofs  of  it  in  our  homes.  We  shall  not 
note  our  increase  of  virtue  so  much  by  see- 
ing more  crooks  in  Sing  Sing,  as  by  seeing 
fewer  of  them  in  the  drawing-rooms.  You 
can  acquire  more  knowledge  of  American 
politics  by  attacking,  in  open  talk,  a  political 
lawyer  of  social  standing,  than  you  can  in  a 
year  of  study.  These  backstair  men  are  in 
every  Bar  Association  and  every  Reform 
Club.  They  are  the  agents  who  supervise 
the  details  of  corruption.  They  run  between 
the  capitalist,  the  boss,  and  the  public  offi- 
46 


BETWEEN    ELECTIONS 

cial.  They  know  as  fact  what  every  one 
else  knows  as  inference.  They  are  the 
priestly  class  of  commerce,  and  correspond 
to  the  intriguing  ecclesiastics  in  periods  of 
church  ascendency.  Some  want  money, 
some  office,  some  mere  power,  others  want 
social  prominence;  and  their  art  is  to  play 
off  interest  against  interest  and  advance 
themselves. 

As  the  president  of  a  social  club  I  have 
a  power  that  I  can  use  against  my  party 
boss  or  for  him.  If  he  can  count  upon  me 
to  serve  him  at  need,  it  is  a  gain  to  him  to 
have  me  establish  myself  as  a  reformer. 
The  most  dependable  of  these  confidence 
men  (for  they  betray  nobody,  and  are  uni- 
versally used  and  trusted)  can  amass  money 
and  stand  in  the  forefront  of  social  life;  and 
now  and  then  one  of  them  is  made  an  arch- 
bishop or  a  foreign  minister.  They  are, 
indeed,  the  figure-heads  of  the  age,  the 
essence  of  all  the  wickedness  and  degrada- 
tion of  our  times.  So  long  as  such  men 
enjoy  public  confidence  we  shall  remain  as 
we  are.  They  must  be  deposed  in  the  public 
mind. 

And  yet  these  gentlemen  are  the  weakest 
point  in  the  serried  ranks  of  iniquity.  They 
are  weak  because  they  have  social  ambition, 
47 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

and  the  place  to  reach  them  is  in  their  clubs. 
They  are  the  best  possible  object  lessons, 
because  everybody  knows  them.  Social 
punishment  is  the  one  cruel  reality,  the  one 
terrible  weapon,  the  one  judgment  against 
which  lawyers  cannot  protect  a  man.  It  is 
as  silent  as  theft,  and  it  raises  the  cry  of 
"Stop  thief!"  like  a  burglar  alarm. 

The  general  cowardice  of  this  age  covers 
itself  with  the  illusion  of  charity,  and  asks, 
in  the  name  of  Christ,  that  no  one's  feelings 
be  hurt.  But  there  is  not  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament any  hint  that  hypocrites  are  to  be 
treated  with  charity.  This  class  is  so  in- 
trenched on  all  sides  that  the  enthusiasts 
cannot  touch  them.  Their  elbows  are  inter- 
locked ;  they  sit  cheek  by  jowl  with  virtue. 
They  are  rich ;  they  possess  the  earth.  How 
shall  we  strike  them  ?  Very  easily.  They 
are  so  soft  with  feeding  on  politic  lies  that 
they  drop  dead  if  you  give  them  a  dose  of 
ridicule  in  a  drawing-room.  Denunciation 
is  well  enough,  but  laughter  is  the  true 
ratsbane  for  hypocrites.  If  you  set  off  a 
few  jests,  the  air  is  changed.  The  men 
themselves  cannot  laugh  or  be  laughed  at; 
for  nature's  revenge  has  given  them  masks 
for  faces.  You  may  see  a  whole  room  full 
of  them  crack  with  pain  because  they  can- 


BETWEEN    ELECTIONS 

not  laugh.  They  are  angry,  and  do  not 
speak. 

Everybody  in  America  is  soft,  and  hates 
conflict.  The  cure  for  this,  both  in  politics 
and  social  life,  is  the  same,  —  hardihood. 
Give  them  raw  truth.  They  think  they  will 
die.  Their  friends  call  you  a  murderer. 
Four  thousand  ladies  and  eighty  bank  direc- 
tors brought  vinegar  and  brown  paper  to 
Low  when  he  was  attacked,  and  Roosevelt 
posed  as  a  martyr  because  it  was  said,  up 
and  down,  that  he  acted  the  part  of  a  selfish 
politician.  What  humbug!  How  is  it  that 
all  these  things  grow  on  the  same  root,  — ■ 
fraud,  cowardice,  formality,  sentimentalism, 
and  a  lack  of  humor?  Why  do  people 
become  so  solemn  when  they  are  making  a 
deal,  and  so  angry  when  they  are  defending 
it?  The  righteous  indignation  expended  in 
protecting  Roosevelt  would  have  founded  a 
church. 

The  whole  problem  of  better  government 
is  a  question  of  how  to  get  people  to  stop 
simpering  and  saying  "After  you  "  to  cant. 
A  is  an  aristocrat.  B  is  a  boss.  C  is  a 
candidate.  D  is  a  distiller.  E  is  an  ex- 
cellent citizen.  They  dine.  Gloomy  silence 
would  be  more  respectable  than  this  chipper 
concern  that  all  shall  go  well.  Is  not  this 
4  49 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

politics?  Yes,  and  the  very  essence  of  it. 
Is  not  the  exposure  of  it  practical  reform? 
How  easily  the  arrow  goes  in  !  A  does  not 
think  you  should  confound  him  with  B,  nor 
E  with  C.  Each  is  a  reformer  when  he 
looks  to  the  right,  and  a  scamp  as  seen  from 
the  left.  What  is  their  fault?  Collusion. 
"But  A  means  so  well."  They  all  mean 
well.  Let  us  not  confound  the  gradations 
of  their  virtue ;  but  can  we  call  any  one  an 
honest  man  who  knowingly  consorts  with 
thieves?  This  they  all  do.  Let  us  declare 
it.  Their  resentment  at  finding  themselves 
classed  together  drives  the  wedge  into  the 
clique. 

Remember,  too,  that  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  abstract  truth.  You  must  talk 
facts,  you  must  name  names,  you  must  im- 
pute motives.  You  must  say  what  is  in 
your  mind.  It  is  the  only  means  you  have 
of  cutting  yourself  free  from  the  body  of  this 
death.  Innuendo  will  not  do.  Nobody 
minds  innuendo.  We  live  and  breathe 
nothing  else.  If  you  are  not  strong  enough 
to  face  the  issue  in  private  life,  do  not 
dream  that  you  can  do  anything  for  public 
affairs.  This,  of  course,  means  fight,  not 
to-morrow,  but  now.  It  is  only  in  the  course 
of  conflict  that  any  one  can  come  to  under- 
5° 


BETWEEN    ELECTIONS 

stand  the  system,  the  habit  of  thought, 
the  mental  condition,  out  of  which  all  our 
evils  arise.  The  first  difficulty  is  to  see  the 
evils  clearly;  and  when  we  do  see  them  it 
is  like  fighting  an  atmosphere  to  contend 
against  them.  They  are  so  universal  and 
omnipresent  that  you  have  no  terms  to  name 
them  by.      You  must  burn  a  disinfectant. 

We  have  observed,  thus  far,  that  no  ques- 
tion is  ever  involved  in  practical  agitation 
except  truth-telling.  So  long  as  a  man  is 
trying  to  tell  the  truth,  his  remarks  will 
contain  a  margin  which  other  people  will 
regard  as  mystifying  and  irritating  exagger- 
ation. It  is  this  very  margin  of  controversy 
that  does  the  work  The  more  accurate  he 
is,  the  less  he  exaggerates,  the  more  he  will 
excite  people.  It  is  only  by  the  true  part 
of  what  is  said  that  the  interest  is  roused. 
No  explosion   follows  a  lie. 

The  awaking  of  the  better  feelings  of  the 
individual  man  is  not  only  the  immediate 
but  the  ultimate  end  of  all  politics.  Nor 
need  we  be  alarmed  at  any  collateral  results. 
No  one  has  ever  succeeded  in  drawing  any 
valid  distinction  between  positive  and  nega- 
tive educational  work,  except  this:  that  in 
so  far  as  a  man  is  positive  himself,  he  does 
positive  work.  It  is  necessary  to  destroy 
5i 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

reputations  when  they  are  lies.  Peace  be 
to  their  ashes.  But  war  and  fire  until  they 
be  ashes.  This  is  positive  and  constructive 
work.  You  cannot  state  your  case  without 
using  popular  illustrations,  and  in  clearing 
the  ground  for  justice  and  mercy,  some  little 
great  man  gets  shown  up  as  a  make-believe. 
This  is  constructive  work. 

It  is  impossible  to  do  harm  to  reform, 
unless  you  are  taking  some  course  that 
tends  to  put  people  to  sleep.  Strangely 
enough,  the  great  outcry  is  made  upon  occa- 
sions when  men  are  refusing  to  take  such  a 
course.  This  is  due  to  the  hypnotism  of 
self-interest.  "Don't  wake  us  up!"  they 
cry,  "We  cannot  stand  the  agony  of  it;" 
and  the  rising  energy  with  which  they  speak 
wakes  other  sleepers.  In  the  early  stages 
of  any  new  idea  the  only  advertising  it  gets 
is  denunciation.  This  is  so  much  better 
than  silence,  that  one  may  hail  it  as  the 
dawn.  You  must  speak  till  you  draw  blood. 
The  agitators  have  always  understood  this. 
Such  men  as  Wendell  Phillips  were  not 
extravagant.  They  were  practical  men. 
Their  business  was  to  get  heard.  They 
used  vitriol,  but  they  were  dealing  with  the 
hide  of  the  rhinoceros. 

If  you  look  at  the  work  of  the  anti-slavery 
52 


BETWEEN    ELECTIONS 

people  by  the  light  of  what  they  were  trying 
to  do,  you  will  find  that  they  had  a  very 
clear  understanding  of  their  task.  The 
reason  of  some  of  them  canted  a  little  from 
the  strain  and  stress ;  but  they  were  so  much 
nearer  being  right-minded  than  their  con- 
temporaries that  we  may  claim  them  as 
respectable  human  beings.  They  were  the 
rock  on  which  the  old  politics  split.  They 
were  a  new  force.  As  soon  as  they  had 
gathered  head  enough  to  affect  political 
issues,  they  broke  every  public  man  at  the 
North  by  forcing  him  to  take  sides.  There 
is  not  a  man  of  the  era  whom  they  did  not 
shatter.  Finally  their  own  leaders  got  into 
public  life,  and  it  was  not  till  then  that  the 
new  era  began.  The  same  thing  is  happen- 
ing to-day.  It  is  the  function  of  the  re- 
former to  crack  up  any  public  man  who 
dodges  the  issue  of  corruption,  or  who  tries 
to  ride  two  horses  by  remaining  a  straight 
party  man  and  shouting  reform.  This  is 
no  one's  fault.  It  is  a  natural  process.  It 
is  fate.  Some  fall  on  one  side  of  the  line, 
and  some  on  the  other.  One  gets  the  office, 
and  the  next  loses  it;  but  oblivion  yawns  for 
all  of  them.  There  is  no  cassia  that  can 
embalm  their  deeds;  they  can  do  nothing 
interesting,  nothing  that  it  lies  in  the  power 
53 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

of  the  human  mind  to  remember.  Why  is 
it  that  Calhoun's  Speeches  are  unreadable? 
He  had  the  earnestness  of  a  prophet  and  the 
strength  almost  of  a  Titan ;  but  he  was  en- 
gaged in  framing  a  philosophy  to  protect  an 
interest.  He  was  maintaining  something 
that  was  not  true.  It  was  a  fallacy.  It  was 
a  pretence.  It  was  a  house  built  on  the 
sands  of  temporary  conditions.  Such  are 
the  ideas  of  those  middling  good  men,  who 
profess  honesty  in  just  that  degree  which 
will  keep  them  in  office.  Honesty  beyond 
this  point  is,  in  their  philosophy,  incom- 
patible with  earthly  conditions.  These 
men  must  exist  at  present.  They  are  an 
organic  product  of  the  times;  they  are 
samples  of  mediocrity.  But  they  have  noth- 
ing to  offer  to  the  curiosity  of  the  next  gen- 
eration. No,  not  though  their  talent  was 
employed  in  protecting  an  Empire  —  as  it  is 
now  employed  in  eking  out  the  supremacy 
of  a  disease  in  a  country  whose  deeper 
health  is  beginning  to  throw  the  poison  off. 

Our  public  men  are  confronted  with  two 
systems  of  politics.  They  cannot  hedge. 
If  the  question  were  suddenly  to  be  lost  in 
a  riot,  no  doubt  a  good  administrator  might 
win  applause,  even  a  Tammany  chief.  But 
we  have  no  riots.  We  have  finished  the  war 
54 


BETWEEN    ELECTIONS 

with  Spain,  and,  unless  foreign  complica- 
tions shall  set  in,  we  are  about  to  sit  down 
with  the  politicians  over  our  domestic  issue 
—  theft.  Are  you  for  theft  or  against  it? 
You  can't  be  both;  and  your  conversation, 
the  views  you  hold  and  express  to  your 
friends,  are  the  test.  It  is  only  because 
politics  affect  or  reflect  these  views  that 
politics  have  any  importance  at  all.  Your 
agents  —  Croker,  Hanna  —  are  serving  you 
faithfully  now.  Nothing  else  is  to  be  heard 
at  the  clubs  but  the  sound  of  little  hammers 
riveting  abuse. 

There  is  another  side  to  this  shield  that 
calls  not  for  scorn  but  for  pity.  Have  you 
ever  been  in  need  of  money?  Almost  every 
man  who  enters  our  society  joins  it  as  a 
young  man  in  need  of  money.  His  instincts 
are  unsullied,  his  intellect  is  fresh  and 
strong,  but  he  must  live.  How  comes  it 
that  the  country  is  full  of  maimed  human 
beings,  of  cynics  and  feeble  good  men,  and 
outside  of  this  no  form  of  life  except  the 
diabolical  intelligence  of  pure  business? 

How  to  make  yourself  needed,  —  it  is  the 

sycophant's   problem;  and    why    should    we 

expect  a  young  American  to  act  differently 

from   a   young    Spaniard    at    the    Court   of 

S5 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

Philip  the  Second?  He  must  get  on.  He 
goes  into  a  law  office,  and  if  he  is  offended 
at  its  dishonest  practices  he  cannot  speak. 
He  soon  accepts  them.  Thereafter  he  can- 
not see  them.  He  goes  into  a  newspaper 
office,  the  same;  a  banker's,  a  merchant's,  a 
dry-goods'  shop.  What  has  happened  to 
these  fellows  at  the  end  of  three  years,  that 
their  minds  seem  to  be  drying  up?  I  have 
seen  many  men  I  knew  in  college  grow  more 
and  more  uninteresting  from  year  to  year. 
Is  there  something  in  trade  that  desiccates 
and  flattens  out,  that  turns  men  into  dried 
leaves  at  the  age  of  forty  ?  Certainly  there 
is.  It  is  not  due  to  trade,  but  to  intensity 
of  self-seeking,  combined  with  narrowness 
of  occupation.  If  I  had  to  make  my  way  at 
the  court  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  I  should 
need  more  kinds  of  wits  and  more  knowl- 
edge of  human  nature  than  in  the  New  York 
button  trade.  No  doubt  I  should  be  a  pre- 
occupied, cringing,  and  odious  sort  of  person 
at  a  feudal  festivity ;  but  I  should  be  a  fasci- 
nating man  of  genius  compared  to  John  H. 
Painter,  who  at  the  age  of  thirty  is  making 
$15,000  a  year  by  keeping  his  mouth  shut 
and  attending  to  business.  Put  a  pressure 
gauge  into  Painter,  and  measure  the  busi- 
ness tension  at  New  York  in  1900.  He  is 
56 


BETWEEN    ELECTIONS 

passing  his  youth  in  a  trance  over  a  game  of 
skill,  and  thereby  earning  the  respect  and 
admiration  of  all  men.  Do  not  blame  him. 
The  great  current  of  business  force  that 
passes  through  the  port  of  New  York  has 
touched  him,  and  he  is  rigid.  There  are 
hundreds  of  these  fellows,  and  they  make  us 
think  of  the  well-meaning  young  man  who 
has  to  support  his  family,  and  who  must 
compete  against  them  for  the  confidence  of 
his  business  patrons.  Our  standard  of  com- 
mercial honesty  is  set  by  that  current.  It 
is  entirely  the  result  of  the  competition  that 
comes  from  everybody's  wanting  to  do  the 
same  thing. 

"But,"  you  say,  "we  are  here  dealing 
with  a  natural  force.  If  you  like,  it  withers 
character,  and  preoccupies  one  part  of  a  man 
for  so  long  that  the  rest  of  him  becomes 
numb.  He  is  hard  and  queer.  He  cannot 
write  because  he  cannot  think;  he  cannot 
draw  because  he  cannot  think;  he  can- 
not enter  real  politics  because  he  cannot 
think.  He  is  all  the  wretch  you  depict  him, 
but  we  must  have  him.  Such  are  men." 
This  is  the  biggest  folly  in  the  world,  and 
shows  as  deep  an  intellectual  injury  in  the 
mind  that  thinks  it  as  self-seeking  can 
inflict.  Business  has  destroyed  the  very 
57 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

knowledge  in  us  of  all  other  natural  forces 
except  business. 

What  shall  we  do  to  diminish  this  awful 
pressure  that  makes  politics  a  hell,  and 
wrings  out  our  manhood,  till  (you  will  find) 
the  Americans  condone  the  death  of  their 
brothers  and  fathers  who  perished  in  home 
camps  during  the  Spanish  war,  because  it 
all  happened  in  the  cause  of  trade,  it  was 
business  thrift,  done  by  smart  men  in  pur- 
suance of  self-interest?  You  ask  what  you 
can  do  to  diminish  the  tension  of  selfish- 
ness, which  is  as  cruel  as  superstition,  and 
which  is  not  in  one  place,  but  everywhere  in 
the  United  States.  It  runs  a  hot  iron  over 
young  intellect,  and  crushes  character  in  the 
bud.  It  is  blindness,  palsy,  and  hip  disease. 
You  can  hardly  find  a  man  who  has  not  got 
some  form  of  it.  There  is  no  newspaper 
which  does  not  show  signs  of  it.  You  can 
hardly  find  a  man  who  does  not  proclaim  it 
to  be  the  elixir  of  life,  the  vade-mecum  of 
civilization.  What  can  you  do?  Why,  you 
can  oppose  it  with  other  natural  forces. 

You  yourself  cannot  turn  Niagara;  but 
there  is  not  a  town  in  America  where  one 
single  man  cannot  make  his  force  felt  against 
the  whole  torrent.  He  takes  a  stand  on  a 
practical  matter.  He  takes  action  against 
53 


BETWEEN    ELECTIONS 

some  abuse.  What  does  this  accomplish? 
Everything.  How  many  people  are  there  in 
your  town  ?  Well,  every  one  of  them  gets  a 
thrill  that  strikes  deeper  than  any  sermon  he 
ever  heard.  He  may  howl,  but  he  hears. 
The  grocer's  boy,  for  the  first  time  in  his 
life,  believes  that  the  whole  outfit  of  morality 
has  any  place  in  the  practical  world.  Every 
class  contributes  its  comment.  Next  year  a 
new  element  comes  forward  in  politics,  as  if 
the  franchise  had  been  extended.  Remem- 
ber this :  you  cannot,  though  you  owned  the 
world,  do  any  good  in  it  except  by  devising 
new  ways  of  manifesting  the  fact  that  you 
felt  in  a  particular  way.  It  is  the  personal  in- 
fluence of  example  that  is  the  power.  Noth- 
ing else  counts.  You  can  do  harm  by  other 
methods,  but  not  good.  This  influence  is  a 
natural  force,  and  works  like  steam  power. 
Why  all  this  commotion  over  your  protest? 
If  you  accuse  the  mayor  of  being  a  thief, 
why  does  he  not  reply,  in  the  words  of 
modern  philosophy,  "  Of  course  I  'm  a  thief, 
I'm  made  that  way"?  Instead  of  that  he 
resents  it,  and  there  ensues  a  discussion  that 
takes  people's  attention  off  of  trade,  and 
qualifies  the  atmosphere  of  the  place.  You 
have  appreciably  relieved  the  tension  and 
checked  the  plague. 

59 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

This  whole  subject  must  be  looked  at  as  a 
crusade  in  the  cause  of  humanity.  You  are 
making  it  easier  for  every  young  man  in  town 
to  earn  his  livelihood  without  paying  out  his 
soul  and  conscience.  You  cannot  help  any 
one  man.  You  are  forced  into  helping  them 
all  at  once.  Every  time  a  man  asserts  himself 
he  cuts  a  cord  that  is  strangling  somebody. 
The  first  time  that  independent  candidates 
for  local  office  were  run  in  New  York  City, 
strong  men  cried  in  the  street  for  rage.  The 
supremacy  of  commerce  had  been  affronted. 
New  York,  in  all  that  makes  life  worth  living, 
is  a  new  city  since  the  reform  movements 
began  to  break  up  the  torpor  of  serfdom. 

You  asked  how  to  fight  force.  It  must  be 
fought  with  force,  and  not  with  arguments. 
Indeed,  it  is  easier  to  start  a  reform  and  carry 
it  through,  than  it  is  to  explain  either  why  or 
how  it  is  done.  You  can  only  understand 
this  after  you  have  been  three  times  ridi- 
culed as  a  reformer ;  and  then  you  will  begin 
to  see  that  throughout  the  community,  run- 
ning through  every  one,  there  are  currents  of 
beneficent  power  that  accomplish  changes, 
sometimes  visible,  sometimes  hard  to  see; 
that  this  power  is  in  its  nature  quite  as 
strong,  quite  as  real  and  reliable,  as  that 
Wall  Street  current,  —  terrible  forces  both 
60 


BETWEEN    ELECTIONS 

of  them,  forever  operative  and  struggling 
and  contending  together  as  they  surge  and 
swell  through  the  people.  It  is  the  sight 
of  that  power  for  good  that  you  need.  I 
cannot  give  it  to  you.  You  must  sink  your 
own  shaft  for  it.  It  is  this  beneficent  cur- 
rent passing  from  man  to  man  that  makes 
the  unity  of  all  efforts  for  public  better- 
ment. You  have  a  movement  and  an  ex- 
citement over  bad  water,  and  it  leaves  you 
with  kindergartens  in  your  schools.  It  is 
this  current  that  turns  your  remark  at  the 
club  (which  every  one  repeated  in  order  to 
injure  you)  into  a  piece  of  encouragement  to 
the  banker's  clerk,  who  could  not  have  made 
it  himself  except  at  the  cost  of  his  livelihood. 
It  is  this  current  —  not  only  the  fear  of  it,  but 
the  presence  of  it  —  in  the  heart  of  your  mer- 
chants that  leaves  them  at  your  mercy.  Cast 
anything  into  this  current  and  it  goes  every- 
where, like  aniline  dye  put  into  a  reservoir; 
it  tinges  the  whole  local  life  in  twenty-four 
hours.  It  is  to  this  current  that  all  appeals 
are  made.  All  party  platforms,  all  resolu- 
tions, all  lies  are  dedicated  to  it;  all  literature 
lives  by  it.  The  head  of  power  is  near  and 
easy  if  you  strike  directly  for  it. 

There  is  an  opinion  abroad  that  good  poli- 
tics requires  that  every  man  should  give  his 
61 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

whole  time  to  politics.  This  is  another  of 
the  superstitions  disseminated  by  the  politi- 
cians who  want  us  to  go  to  their  primaries, 
and  accepted  by  people  so  ignorant  of  life 
that  they  believe  that  the  temperature  de- 
pends upon  the  thermometer. 

Why,  you  are  running  those  primaries  now. 
If  you  were  different,  they  would  become  dif- 
ferent. You  need  never  go  near  them.  Go 
into  that  camp  where  your  instinct  leads  you. 
The  improvement  in  politicswill  not  be  marked 
by  any  cyclonic  overturn.  There  will  always 
be  two  parties  competing  for  your  vote.  It 
takes  no  more  time  to  vote  for  a  good  man 
than  for  a  bad  man.  There  will  be  no  more 
men  in  public  life  then  than  now.  There 
will  be  no  overt  change  in  conditions.  A  few 
leaders  will  stand  for  the  new  forces.  It  is 
true  that  it  requires  a  general  increase  of  in- 
terest on  the  part  of  every  one,  in  order  that 
these  men  shall  be  found.  Your  personal 
duty  is  to  support  them  in  private  and  pub- 
lic. That  is  all.  The  extent  to  which  you 
yourself  become  involved  in  public  affairs  de- 
pends upon  chances  with  which  you  need  not 
concern  yourself.  Only  try  to  understand 
what  is  happening  under  your  eyes.  Every 
time  you  see  a  group  of  men  advancing  some 
cause  that  seems  sensible,  and  being  de- 
62 


BETWEEN    ELECTIONS 

nounced  on  all  hands  as  "  self-appointed," 
see  if  it  was  not  something  in  yourself,  after 
all,  that  appointed  those  men. 

As  we  grow  old,  what  have  we  to  rely  on 
as  a  touchstone  for  the  times?  You  once 
had  your  own  causes  and  enthusiasms,  but 
you  cannot  understand  these  new  ones.  You 
had  your  certificate  from  the  Almighty,  but 
these  fellows  are  "  self-appointed."  What 
you  wanted  was  clear,  but  these  men  want 
something  unattainable,  something  that  soci- 
ety, as  you  know  it,  cannot  supply.  Calm 
yourself,  my  friend ;  perhaps  they  bring  it. 

Has  the  great  Philosophy  of  Evolution 
done  nothing  for  the  mind  of  man,  that  new 
developments,  as  they  arrive,  are  received  with 
the  same  stony  solemnity,  are  greeted  with 
the  same  phrases  as  ever?  How  can  you 
have  the  ingenuousness  to  argue  soberly 
against  me,  supplying  me,  by  every  word  you 
say,  with  new  illustrations,  new  hope,  new 
fuel  ?  Until  I  heard  you  repeat  word  by  word 
the  prayer-book  of  crumbling  conservatism,  I 
was  not  sure  I  was  right.  You  have  placed 
the  great  seal  of  the  world  upon  new  truth. 
Thus  should  it  be  received. 

The  radicals  are  really  always  saying  the 
same  thing.  They  do  not  change  ;  everybody 
else  changes.  They  are  accused  of  the  most 
63 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

incompatible  crimes,  of  egoism  and  a  mania 
for  power,  indifference  to  the  fate  of  their 
own  cause,  fanaticism,  triviality,  want  of 
humor,  buffoonery  and  irreverence.  But 
they  sound  a  certain  note.  Hence  the  great 
practical  power  of  consistent  radicals.  To  all 
appearance  nobody  follows  them,  yet  every 
one  believes  them.  They  hold  a  tuning-fork 
and  sound  A,  and  everybody  knows  it  really 
is  A,  though  the  time-honored  pitch  is  G  flat. 
The  community  cannot  get  that  A  out  of  its 
head.  Nothing  can  prevent  an  upward  ten- 
dency in  the  popular  tone  so  long  as  the  real 
A  is  kept  sounding.  Every  now  and  then  the 
whole  town  strikes  it  for  a  week,  and  all  the 
bells  ring,  and  then  all  sinks  to  suppressed 
discord  and  denial. 

The  reason  why  we  have  not,  of  late  years, 
had  strong  consistent  centres  of  influence, 
focuses  of  steady  political  power,  has  been 
that  the  community  has  not  developed  men 
who  could  hold  the  note.  It  was  only  when 
the  note  made  a  temporary  concord  with 
some  heavy  political  scheme  that  the  reform 
leaders  could  hear  it  themselves.  For  the  rest 
of  the  time  it  threw  the  whole  civilization 
out  of  tune.  The  terrible  clash  of  interests 
drowned  it.  The  reformers  themselves  lost 
it,  and  wandered  up  and  down,  guessing. 
64 


BETWEEN    ELECTIONS 

It  is  imagined  that  nature  goes  by  jumps, 
and  that  a  whole  community  can  suddenly 
sing  in  tune,  after  it  has  been  caterwauling 
and  murdering  the  scale  for  twenty  years. 
The  truth  is,  we  ought  to  thank  God  when 
any  man  or  body  of  men  make  the  discovery 
that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  absolute  pitch, 
or  absolute  honesty,  or  absolute  personal  and 
intellectual  integrity.  A  few  years  of  this 
spirit  will  identify  certain  men  with  the  funda- 
mental idea  that  truth  is  stronger  than  conse- 
quences, and  these  men  will  become  the  most 
serious  force  and  the  only  truly  political  force 
in  their  community.  Their  ambition  is  illimi- 
table, for  you  cannot  set  bounds  to  personal 
influence.  But  it  is  an  ambition  that  cannot 
be  abused.  A  departure  from  their  own 
course  will  ruin  any  one  of  them  in  a  night, 
and  undo  twenty  years  of  service. 

It  would  be  natural  that  such  sets  of  men 
should  arise  all  over  the  country,  men  who 
"  wanted  "  nothing,  and  should  reveal  the  in- 
verse position  of  the  Boss  System  ;  a  set  of 
moral  bosses  with  no  organizations,  no  poli- 
tics ;  men  thrown  into  prominence  by  the  op- 
eration of  all  the  forces  of  human  nature  now 
suppressed,  and  the  suppression  of  those  now 
operative.  It  is  obvious  that  one  such  man 
will  suffice  for  a  town.  In  the  competition  of 
5  65 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

character,  one  man  will  be  naturally  fixed 
upon,  whom  his  competitors  will  be  the  first 
to  honor;  and  upon  him  will  be  condensed 
the  public  feeling,  the  confidence  of  the  com- 
munity. If  the  extreme  case  do  not  arise, 
nevertheless  it  is  certain  that  the  tendencies 
toward  a  destruction  of  the  present  system, 
will  reveal  themselves  as  a  tendency  making 
for  the  weight  of  personal  character  in  prac- 
tical politics. 

Reform  politics  is,  after  all,  a  simple  thing. 
It  demands  no  great  attainments.  You  can 
play  the  game  in  the  dark.  A  child  can 
understand  it.  There  are  no  subtleties  nor 
obscurities,  no  higher  analysis  or  mystery  of 
any  sort.  If  you  want  a  compass  at  any  mo- 
ment in  the  midst  of  some  difficult  situation, 
you  have  only  to  say  to  yourself,  "  Life  is 
larger  than  this  little  imbroglio.  I  shall  follow 
my  instinct."  As  you  say  this,  your  compass 
swings  true.  You  may  be  surprised  to  find 
what  course  it  points  to.  But  what  it  tells 
you  to  do  will  be  practical  agitation. 


66 


Ill 

THE   MASSES 

Let  us  examine  current  beliefs  on  popular 
education,  and  then  thereafter  let  us  look  very 
closely  at  the  work  done  among  the  poor, 
and  see  upon  what  lines  it  has  been  found 
possible  to  establish  influence. 

Why  is  it  that  if  you  go  down  to  the  Bow- 
ery and  set  up  a  kindergarten  or  give  a  course 
of  lectures  on  the  Duties  of  Citizenship, 
every  one  commends  you  ;  whereas  if  you  go 
into  some  abandoned  district  where  a  Tam- 
many thug  is  running  for  the  State  Assembly 
against  a  Republican  heeler,  and  if  you  put 
an  honest  man  in  the  field  against  them  both, 
your  friends  call  you  a  fool,  and  say  that 
your  reform  consists  of  mere  negation? 

Who  asks  to  see  the  results  upon  the  pub- 
lic welfare  of  a  night  school  in  astronomy? 
Yet,  if  you  get  ten  mechanics  to  labor  for  six 
months  with  the  fire  of  enthusiasm  in  them, 
building  up  a  radical  club,  and  as  a  result, 
one  hundred  and  fifty  men  cast  for  the  first 
67 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

time  in  their  lives  a  vote  that  represents  the 
heart  and  conscience  of  each,  your  intelligent 
friends  ask,  "  What  have  you  done?  You  are 
howling  against  the  moon." 

Why  is  it  that  if  you  are  a  grocer  and 
refuse  to  sand  your  sugar,  you  are  called 
honest?  Yet,  if  a  young  politician  takes  this 
course,  it  is  supposed  that  life  is  not  long 
enough  for  the  world  to  discover  his  value ; 
he  is  a  visionary.  In  the  sugar  trade  the  man 
insisted  upon  dealing  with  the  community  as 
a  whole.  He  was  not  trying  to  sell  sugar  to 
a  club,  or  to  benefit  some  district.  He  dealt 
with  the  public.  Now,  if  a  politician  deals 
directly  with  the  public,  we  condemn  him 
because  we  cannot  see  the  empire  of  confi- 
dence he  is  building  up.  The  reason  we  do 
not  see  it  is  entirely  due  to  historical  causes. 
We  have  had  little  experience  recently  in  the 
utility  of  large  appeals.  We  forget  their 
power.  Yet  we  are  not  without  examples. 
Grover  Cleveland  dealt  directly  with  the  peo- 
ple on  a  great  scale.  He  established  a  per- 
sonal relation  that  was  stronger  than  party 
bonds.  This  made  him  President,  preserved 
his  character  and  gave  reality  to  politics.  It 
was  a  bit  of  education  to  every  man  in  the 
United  States  to  see  what  riff-raff  our  politi- 
cal arks  were  made  of:  a  man  laid  his  hand 
68 


THE    MASSES 

on  the  end  of  one  of  them  and  tore  off  the 
roof. 

We  are  rather  more  familiar  with  the  power 
of  public  confidence  as  seen  in  times  of  revo- 
lution. In  the  year  of  the  Lexow  investigation 
the  people  of  New  York  City  believed  that 
Dr.  Parkhurst  and  John  Goff  were  in  earnest. 
There  was  a  period  of  a  few  weeks  when  Goff 
exercised  the  powers  of  a  dictator.  The  Police 
Commissioners  had  threatened  to  discipline  a 
subordinate  who  had  testified  before  Goff's 
committee.  He  subpoenaed  them  all  the 
next  morning,  and  he  browbeat  them  like 
school-boys.  They  went  back  humbled. 
The  revelations  of  the  summer  had  awakened 
the  spirit  of  revolt  in  the  masses  of  the  people, 
and  it  expressed  itself  directly  as  power.  The 
machinery  of  government  was  not  in  abey- 
ance, but  it  was  seen  to  be  a  mere  vehicle. 
It  could  be  made  to  work  justice.  Here  were 
two  men,  Goff  and  Parkhurst,  rendered  all- 
powerful  by  the  existence  of  popular  confi- 
dence. The  state  of  mind  of  the  community 
was  unusual,  and  the  indignation  soon  sub- 
sided ;  but  it  subsided  to  a  new  level,  and  the 
abuses  and  inhumanity  of  Boss  tyranny  have 
never  since  been  so  severe  in  New  York. 

Our  people  have  seen  several  volcanic 
eruptions  of  this  sort,  and  therefore  they 
69 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

believe  in  them.  They  believe  in  the  moral 
power  of  the  community,  but  are  afraid  it 
can  only  act  by  convulsion.  They  think  that 
some  new  principle  comes  into  play  at  such 
times,  something  which  is  not  a  constant 
factor  in  daily  government.  On  the  other 
hand,  we  have  all  been  trained  to  respect 
plodding  methods  in  common  education,  and 
we  know  that  much  can  be  done  by  kinder- 
gartens, boys'  clubs,  and  propaganda  to 
change  the  standards  of  the  community  and 
make  men  trust  virtue.  We  believe  in  the 
boys'  club,  and  we  believe  in  the  earthquake ; 
we  forget  that  the  same  principle  underlies 
them  both.  When  some  one  applies  this 
principle  to  the  field  of  political  education 
that  lies  between  them,  we  are  cynical  be- 
cause we  have  no  experience. 

Apart  from  the  lack  of  experience  that 
prevents  people  from  seeing  the  use  of  this 
practical  activity,  there  are  two  distressing 
elements  that  make  men  not  want  to  see  it. 
In  the  first  place,  even  if  you  work  in  the 
Bowery  and  a  friend  votes  in  Harlem,  you 
are  apt  to  be  hitting  his  interests  and  preju- 
dices. And  in  the  second  place  your  conduct 
is  a  horrid  appeal.  If  this  work  is  useful,  he 
ought  to  be  doing  it.  He  had  hoped  that 
nothing  could  be  done. 
70 


THE    MASSES 

The  real  distinction  between  this  particular 
sort  of  work  and  other  philanthropy  is,  that 
other  philanthropy  is  preparatory  drill ;  this 
is  war.  The  other  is  feeding,  training,  and 
preaching;  this  is  practice.  Now,  you  may 
have  your  license  to  preach  all  you  please 
in  the  vineyard,  but  if  you  touch  the  soil 
with  the  spade,  you  find  the  ground  is  pre- 
empted ;  you  are  fighting  a  railroad.  And 
this  condition  is  openly  recognized  in  cities 
where  the  evil  forces  are  completely  dominant. 

In  lecturing  before  the  University  Exten- 
sion in  Pennsylvania,  you  are  not  allowed  to 
talk  politics.  It  is  against  the  policy  of  the 
philanthropists  who  run  the  institution,  and 
who  are  run  by  the  railroad.  The  situation 
in  Philadelphia  is  merely  illustrative  of  the 
distinction  between  philanthropy  and  political 
reform,  which  is  always  ready  to  become 
apparent.  Of  course,  so  long  as  the  railroad 
distributes  the  philanthropy,  there  will  result 
nothing  but  tyranny.  The  Roman  Emperors 
gave  shows  to  amuse  the  people,  and  we 
give  them  talks  on  Botticelli  and  magic-lan- 
tern pictures  of  the  Nile.  There  are,  then, 
real  reasons  why  our  people  are  slow  to  ac- 
knowledge the  utility  of  militant  political 
reform,  and  why  they  clutch  at  any  handle 
against  it. 

7i 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

But  we  have  much  more  to  learn  from  the 
philanthropists  by  a  study  of  what  they  have 
done  than  by  dwelling  on  their  shortcom- 
ings. They  have  labored  while  the  political 
reformers  have  slept ;  and  after  many  trials 
and  many  failures  they  have  found  certain 
working  principles. 

It  was  they  who  discovered  that  we  cannot, 
as  human  nature  is  constituted,  give  strength 
to  any  one  except  by  helping  the  whole  man 
to  develop  at  once.  We  must  give  him  a 
chance  to  grow.  The  workers  among  the 
poor  have  long  ago  seen  the  futility  of  any 
effort  except  that  of  raising  the  general  stand- 
ards of  living.  They  have  established  Settle- 
ments, where  the  relation  between  the  settlers 
and  the  surrounding  population  is  as  natural 
as  family  life  and  as  perennial  as  Tammany 
Hall.  After  ten  years  of  experiment  this  has 
been  done  in  many  places.  If  you  will  go  to 
one  of  these  places  and  study  exactly  what 
has  happened  in  the  line  of  benefit  to  the 
people,  you  will  see  that  it  has  resulted 
wholly  from  personal  influence,  —  that  is  to 
say,  from  the  effect  of  character  upon  char- 
acter. "  Two  years  ago  we  established  a  boys' 
club,  and  soon  afterwards  a  kindergarten.  The 
boys  returned  one  day,  and  out  of  jealousy 
smashed  everything  belonging  to  the  kinder- 
72 


THE    MASSES 

garten,  and  piled  the  rubbish  in  the  middle 
of  the  room.  Last  week  a  barrel  of  fruit  was 
sent  here  for  the  sick  and  weakly,  and  we 
left  the  barrel  open  with  a  card  on  the  out- 
side to  that  effect.  You  could  not  get  the 
boys  to  touch  the  fruit.  Now,  if  you  ask  me 
what  system  or  what  part  of  the  system  has 
caused  the  change  in  these  boys,  I  don't 
know." 

This  is  reform  politics,  but  unless  you  and 
I  go  there  and  make  a  place  for  these  boys 
in  practical  politics,  they  will  find  waiting  for 
them  nothing  but  the  caucus  and  the  job. 
They  will  relapse  and  forget.  It  is  throwing 
effort  into  the  sea  to  train  the  young  if  you 
stop  there.  The  test  comes  when  the  scaffold- 
ings of  early  life  are  taken  down.  Each  man 
meets  the  world  alone.  The  tragedies  of  char- 
acter occur  at  this  period.  We  must  make  a 
camp  and  standing  ground  for  grown  men. 
So  far  as  the  hope  of  political  purity  goes, 
there  are  acres  of  this  city  that  are  in  a  worse 
condition  than  health  was  in  before  the  era  of 
hospitals.  Fly  over  them  as  the  crow  flies, 
and  you  cannot  find  a  centre  of  downright 
antagonism  to  evil.  The  population  does 
not  know  that  such  a  thing  exists ;  and  yet, 
if  you  propose  to  go  there  and  set  up  a  fight 
against  both  parties,  —  that  is  to  say,  a  fight 
73 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

against  wickedness, — you  are  told  by  patriots 
and  doctors  of  divinity,  "  Don't  do  it  unless 
you  can  win.  You  will  disgust  people  with 
reform." 

It  is  awful  and  at  the  same  time  ludicrous 
to  hear  an  educated  person  maintain  this 
doctrine  and  in  the  same  breath  mourn  over 
the  corruption  of  the  masses.  The  man 
throws  his  own  dark  shadow  over  them  and 
bewails  their  want  of  light.  He  doubts  the 
power  of  personal  influence ;  and  yet  there 
is  absolutely  no  other  force  for  good  in  the 
world,  and  never  has  been.  Let  us  stick  to 
facts.  Take  individual  cases  of  improvement 
and  see  what  power  has  been  at  work.  You 
will  find  that  you  disclose  behind  any  per- 
sonal improvement,  not  a  ballot  law  or  an 
organization,  but  a  human  being. 

The  movement  for  political  reform  goes 
into  the  Bowery  in  the  wake  of  the  philan- 
thropists. We  go  there  knowing  something 
about  practical  politics.  We  know,  for  in- 
stance, that  the  Bowery  is  the  geographical 
name  for  a  district  which  is  really  governed 
by  the  same  forces  as  Fifth  Avenue.  To 
think  that  the  politics  of  the  Bowery  are  con- 
trolled by  the  Bowery  is  about  as  sensible  as 
to  believe  that  the  politics  of  Irkutsk  are  con- 
trolled at  Irkutsk.  We  have  got,  first,  to  dis- 
74 


THE    MASSES 

close  the  machinery  of  evil  and  then  to  fight 
it  wherever  we  find  it,  even  though  it  lead  us 
into  churches.  Nothing  is  needed  in  any 
Tammany  club  on  the  Bowery  that  is  not 
needed  ten  times  as  much  in  the  Union 
League  Club  on  Fifth  Avenue  —  personal 
self-sacrifice  for  principle  in  a  cause  which 
is  apparently  hopeless.  Unless  you  go  there 
displaying  that,  you  are  not  needed. 

Our  intercourse  with  the  laboring  man  is 
a  great  teacher  to  ourselves.  That  is  its 
main  use.  It  brings  out,  as  nothing  else 
can,  the  magnitude  and  perfection  of  the 
system,  whose  visible  top  and  little  flag  we 
can  always  see,  but  whose  dimensions  and 
ramifications  nothing  but  experiment  can 
reveal ;    philosophy  could  not  guess  it. 

Here  is  a  laborer  on  the  street  railroad. 
In  order  to  get  work  he  must  show  a  ticket 
from  the  party  boss.  It  is  his  passport  from 
the  Czar,  countersigned  by  the  proper  offi- 
cial ;  otherwise  he  gets  no  job.  Here  is  a 
young  notary  whom  you  employ  to  carry 
about  the  certificate  that  puts  an  independent 
candidate  in  nomination.  You  try  to  get  him 
to  sign  the  thing  himself  and  join  your  club. 
It  is  no  use  asking.  His  brother  did  it  once 
and  lost  his  place ;  so  close  is  the  scrutiny,  so 
rapid  the  punishment.  Examine  the  retail 
75 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

grocer,  or  the  tobacconist,  or  the  cobbler ;  go 
into  particulars  with  him,  and  you  will  find 
that  his  unwillingness  to  join  your  movement 
does  not  spring  so  directly  from  his  inability 
to  see  the  point  of  it,  as  from  fear  of  the  direct 
and  immediate  consequences  to  himself. 

We  wanted  to  elevate  the  masses,  but  it 
turns  out,  as  the  philanthropists  discerned 
long  ago,  that  there  are  no  masses  in  Amer- 
ica, there  are  no  masses  in  New  York  City. 
We  can  discover  only  individuals,  who  are 
each  controlled  by  individual  interests,  by 
various  and  subtle  considerations.  These 
men  are  in  chains  to  other  men,  who  often 
live  in  other  parts  of  the  city. 

The  attorneys  and  merchants,  the  business 
world  in  fact,  is  found  to  be  in  league  with 
abuse.  The  man  who  signs  the  laborer's 
license  to  work  reports  twice  a  day  to  a  big 
contractor  who  is  director  in  a  bank  whose 
president  owns  the  opera  house  and  en- 
dowed the  sailors'  home.  He  built  the  yacht 
club,  is  vestryman  in  the  biggest  church,  and 
is  revered  by  all  men.  The  title-deeds  and 
registry  books  of  all  visible  wealth,  show  the 
names  of  his  intimate  friends.  All  we  can  do 
in  the  way  of  weakening  the  chains  is  to  ex- 
pose them ;  this  cruelty  is  largely  ignorance. 
The  beneficiaries  must  be  made  to  see  the 
76 


THE    MASSES 

sources  of  their  wealth.  It  is  prc-occupation 
with  business,  not  coldness  of  heart,  that  con- 
ceals the  conditions.  The  American  business 
man  is  a  warm-hearted  being.  He  does  not 
even  care  for  money,  but  for  the  game  of 
business. 

As  matters  now  stand  in  America,  we  see 
this  condition,  —  that  it  is  for  the  immediate 
interest  of  the  dominant  class,  namely,  the 
politico-financial  class,  to  keep  the  people  as 
selfish  as  possible.  We  have  examined  the 
subtle  strains  of  influence  and  prejudice  by 
which  this  commercial  interest  has  been  ex- 
tended, until,  as  a  practical  matter,  it  is  almost 
impossible  for  a  man  to  get  word  to  the  labor- 
ing classes  that  there  exists  such  a  thing  as 
political  morality.  Some  professional  philan- 
thropist always  stands  ready  to  prevent  the 
signal  of  honesty  from  being  raised;  some 
set  of  Sunday  citizens  interposes  to  stop  the 
unwise,  inexpedient,  foolhardy  attempt  to  be 
independent  of  rascality. 

And  when  you  do  succeed  in  reaching  the 
mechanic,  what  can  you  do  for  him?  Tell 
him  to  be  a  man,  and  strike  off  the  shackles 
that  bind  him. 

Here  we  are,  as  helpless  before  the  poor  as 
before  the  rich,  facing  both  of  them  with  the 
same  query,  "  Can  you  not  see  that  your  own 
77 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

concession,  call  it  poverty,  or  call  it  poverty 
of  will,  is  one  element  of  this  oppression?" 

The  difference  between  the  poor  and  the 
financial  classes  is  one  of  spiritual  complexity. 
The  promoters  are  well-to-do  because  their 
minds  have  been  able  to  grasp  and  utilize  the 
complex  forces  made  up  of  the  minds  of  their 
simpler  fellow-beings.  And  this  astuteness 
leaves  them  less  open  to  unselfish  emotions 
than  the  laboring  man.  His  nature  is  more 
intact.  He  is  a  more  emotional  and  instinc- 
tive being.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  moral 
reforms  have  come  from  the  lower  strata  of 
society.  The  people  have  as  much  to  lose 
as  the  bankers,  but  they  are  more  ready  to 
lose  it. 

The  head  of  moral  feeling  in  the  community 
has  got  to  grow  strong  enough  to  force  the 
financier  to  take  his  clutch  off  the  laboring 
man,  before  you  can  reach  the  laboring  man. 
And  yet  labor  itself  will  contribute  more  than 
its  share  towards  this  head  of  moral  feeling ; 
and  therefore  you  must  go  among  the  labor- 
ing classes  with  your  ideas  and  your  propa- 
ganda. But  beware  lest  you  give  him  a 
stone  for  bread.  You  can  do  no  more  for 
a  man  because  you  call  yourself  a  "  politi- 
cian" than  if  yoli  were  a  mere  philanthropist. 
A  man's  standards  of  political  thought  are  but 
78 


THE    MASSES 

a  small  fraction  of  his  general  standards,  and 
unless  your  sense  of  truth  is  as  sharp  as  a 
sword  you  had  better  not  come  near  the 
laboring   man. 

The  point  here  made  is  —  and  it  is  of  great 
importance  —  that  we  candidly  acknowledge 
at  every  instant  the  nature  of  our  undertak- 
ing and  the  nature  of  our  power,  for  in  so  far 
as  we  mistake  them  we  weaken  our  practical 
utility. 

It  is  not  as  the  agent  of  any  institution 
that  you  are  here,  but  as  the  agent  of  con- 
science at  the  dictation  of  personal  feeling. 
Do  you  need  proof  that  you  yourself  draw 
all  your  power  from  sheer  moral  influence? 
Note  what  you  do  when  you  start  your  club. 
You  go  to  the  nearest  well-to-do  person  and 
ask  for  money  for  rent.  He  gives  it  to  you 
out  of  his  fund  of  general  benevolence.  To 
whom  do  you  really  want  to  distribute  this 
benevolence?  To  every  one.  You  feel  that 
by  passing  it  on  through  a  group  and  series 
of  boys  and  young  men  you  can  benefit  the 
whole  country.  You  use  them  as  a  mere 
vehicle.  You  know  that  you  can  only  help 
them  by  getting  them  to  help  others.  Your 
appeal  for  clients  then  goes  out  to  the  whole 
district.  Your  club  puts  you  in  communica- 
tion with  every  man  in  it.  In  teaching  your 
79 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

club  or  in  exhorting  any  mortal  to  good  be- 
havior, what  method,  what  stimulus,  do  you 
use?  Whether  you  know  it  or  not,  you  are 
really  drawing  support  from  every  one  who 
is  following  the  same  principle,  all  over  the 
city,  all  over  the  country,  all  over  the  world. 
Do  you  not  ceaselessly  appeal  to  the  ex- 
amples of  Washington  and  Lincoln,  to  the 
books  and  conduct  of  men  whose  aims  were 
your  aims?  Or  take  your  own  case.  Why 
do  you  occupy  yourself  with  this  thing? 
This  activity  satisfies  your  demands  upon 
life ;  nothing  else  does.  You  are  the  crea- 
ture of  a  thousand  influences,  and  if  you  begin 
to  trace  them  you  find  that  you  are  fulfilling 
the  will  of  Toynbee,  of  John  Stuart  Mill,  of 
Kant.  You  are  a  disciple  of  Tolstoi.  You 
were  inspired  by  William  Lloyd  Garrison. 
It  is  they,  as  much  as  you,  who  are  doing  this 
work.  It  is  they  who  formulated  the  ideas 
and  impressed  them  upon  you.  Your  great 
friends  are  the  founders  of  religions.  Ex- 
amine the  actual  persons  who  give  you  prac- 
tical help.  You  will  find  Moses,  you  will 
find  Christ  behind  them.  What  you  are 
using  is  the  world's  fund  of  unselfishness. 
It  is  necessary  to  employ  the  whole  of  it  in 
order  to  accomplish  anything,  however  small. 
As  a  practical  matter,  every  one  does  employ 
80 


THE    MASSES 

the  whole  of  it  every  time  he  even  thinks  of 
reform. 

Now,  just  as  we  can  trace  the  sources  of 
our  power  in  the  great  currents  of  human 
feeling  that  flow  down  to  us  out  of  the  past; 
so  we  can  foresee  the  accomplishments  of 
that  power  in  enlarging  the  lives  of  men  who 
come  after  us.  We  are  sinking  the  founda- 
tions of  a  new  politics.  You  cannot  always 
see  every  stone,  but  it  has  gone  to  its  place. 
It  is  impossible  to  take  a  stand  for  what  you 
think  is  a  true  theory  without  thereby  be- 
coming an  integral  factor  for  good  in  every 
man  who  hears  of  it.  It  is  impossible  to  be 
that  factor  without  taking  that  stand. 

What  is  the  nature  of  the  good  you  can 
do  to  the  laboring  man?  His  mind  analyzes 
you  in  a  flash.  If  he  is  influenced  by  you, 
you  may  be  sure  that  it  is  by  something  in 
you  that  you  had  not  intended  to  give  him. 
After  the  man  has  seen  you,  he  has  been 
moved  by  you  ;  but  how?  Consult  your  own 
remembrance.  What  incident  of  character 
impressed  you  most  when  you  were  a  child  ? 
Do  you  remember  any  act,  any  expression 
or  gesture  or  anecdote  or  speech,  that  had  a 
lasting  influence  upon  you?  Now  I  ask  you 
this :  Was  it  done  for  you  ?  Were  you  the 
designed  beneficiary  of  it?  Was  it  not  rather 
6  Si 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

the  silent  part  of  some  one  else's  conduct,  a 
thing  you  were  perhaps  not  meant  to  see  at 
all?  And  this  was  no  accident.  This  is  the 
natural  history  of  influence ;  it  passes  uncon- 
sciously from  life  to  life. 

We  must  take  the  world  as  we  find  it.  We 
must  deal  with  human  nature  according  to 
the  laws  of  human  nature.  Our  politics  are 
at  present  so  artificial  that  the  average  man 
thinks  that  the  name  "  politics  "  prevents  the 
well  established  and  familiar  principles  of 
human  nature  from  being  operative.  But  he 
is  wrong.  Man  has  never  yet  succeeded  in 
inventing  any  system  that  could  evade  them 
or  affect  them  in  the  least.  All  the  political 
organization  of  reform  is  already  in  exist- 
ence, and  needs  only  strengthening  and  de- 
veloping. It  is  all  in  use,  and  every  one 
understands  its  use  and  knows  its  headquar- 
ters and  its  agencies.  It  is  all  individual 
character  and  courage,  and  with  the  growth 
of  character  and  courage  it  will  become  more 
defined  and  visible  every  day. 


82 


IV 

LITERATURE 

There  are  feelings  and  views  about  life, 
there  are  conviction  and  insight,  which  come 
from  thinking  at  a  high  rate  of  speed,  and 
vanish  when  the  machinery  moves  slowly 
and  the  blood  ebbs.  The  world  not  only 
accepts  the  intensity  of  the  writer,  but  de- 
mands it.  Nevertheless,  the  world  has  an 
imperfect  knowledge  as  to  where  this  inten- 
sity comes  from,  how  it  is  produced,  or  what 
relation  it  bears  to  ugliness  and  falsehood. 
"What  a  pleasure  it  must  be  to  you,"  said 
Rothschild  to  Heine,  "to  be  able  to  turn  off 
those  little  songs  !  " 

In  our  ordinary  moods  we  regard  the  con- 
clusions of  the  poets  as  both  true  and  un- 
true, —  true  to  feeling,  untrue  to  fact ;  true  as 
intimations  of  the  next  world  or  of  some  lost 
world;  untrue  here,  because  detached  from 
those  portions  of  society  that  are  peren- 
nially visible.  Most  men  have  a  duplicate 
philosophy  which  enables  them  to  love  the 
83 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

arts  and  the  wit  of  mankind,  at  the  same 
time  that  they  conveniently  despise  them. 
Life  is  ugly  and  necessary ;  art  is  beautiful 
and  impossible.  "The  farther  you  go  from 
the  facts  of  life,  the  nearer  you  get  to  poetry. 
The  practical  problem  is  to  keep  them  in 
separate  spheres,  and  to  enjoy  both."  The 
hypothesis  of  a  duplicity  in  the  universe 
explains  everything,  and  staves  off  all  claims 
and  questionings. 

Such  are  the  convictions  of  the  average 
cultivated  man.  His  back  is  broken,  but 
he  lives  in  the  two  halves  comfortably 
enough.  He  has  to  be  protected  at  his  weak 
spot,  of  course,  and  that  spot  is  the  present ; 
ten  years  from  now,  to-morrow,  yesterday, 
the  day  of  judgment,  the  State  of  Penn- 
sylvania, —  all  these  you  are  welcome  to. 
Every  form  of  idealism  appeals  to  him,  so 
long  as  it  does  not  ask  him  to  budge  out  of 
his  armchair.  "Aha,"  he  says,  "I  under- 
stand this.  It  takes  its  place  in  the  realm 
of  the  Imagination." 

This  man  does  not  know,  and  has  no  means 
of  knowing,  that  good  books  are  only  written 
by  men  whose  backs  are  not  broken,  and 
whose  vital  energy  circulates  through  their 
entire  system  in  one  sweep.  They  have  a 
unitary   and    not    a    duplicate    philosophy. 


LITERATURE 

The  present  is  their  strong  point.  The 
actualities  of  life  are  their  passion.  They 
lay  a  bold  hand  upon  everything  within  their 
reach,  for  they  see  it  with  new  sight. 

The  glitter  of  the  past  makes  us  think  of 
literature  as  embodied  in  books;  but  to 
understand  literature  we  must  fix  our  minds 
on  authors,  not  on  books.  The  men  who 
write  t—  what  makes  them  write  well  or  ill? 
What  are  the  conditions  that  breed  poetry, 
or  music,  or  architecture?  The  current  be- 
liefs about  art  and  letters  are  fatalistic. 
It  is  supposed  that  poets  and  artists  crop 
up  now  and  then,  and  that  nothing  can  stop 
them ;  they  need  no  aid,  they  conquer  cir- 
cumstances. I  do  not  believe  it.  We  see 
no  analogy  to  it  in  nature.  Among  the 
plants  and  the  fishes  we  see  nothing  but 
a  wholesale  and  incredible  destruction  of 
germs  on  all  sides.  It  seems  a  miracle  that 
any  seed  should  fall  upon  good  ground,  and 
be  sheltered  till  it  come  to  the  flower.  Why 
should  the  percentage  of  germs  that  come  to 
maturity  be  greater  with  genius  than  it  is 
with  the  eggs  of  the  sturgeon?  The  ene- 
mies of  each  are  numerous.  If  it  were  not 
for  the  fecundity  of  nature,  we  should  have 
none  of  either  of  them.  And  how  is  it  that 
the  great  man  always  happens  to  be  young 
85 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

at  the  very  moment  when  some  events  are 
going  forward  that  ripen  his  powers ;  so  that 
he  grows  up  with  his  time,  and  does  some- 
thing that  is  comprehensible  to  all  time? 

The  answer  is,  that  all  eras  are  sown  thick 
with  the  seeds  of  genius,  which  for  the  most 
part  die,  but  in  a  favoring  age  mature  to 
greatness.  Must  we  resort  to  a  theory  of 
special  creation  to  explain  the  great  talents 
of  the  world?  And  even  this  would  not 
explain  our  own  welcome  and  our  own  com- 
prehension of  them  when  they  come.  If  it 
were  not  for  the  undeveloped  powers,  the 
seeds  of  genius,  in  ourselves,  Plato  and  Bach 
would  be  meaningless,  and  Christ  would 
have  died  in  vain. 

It  must  be  that  thousands  of  good  intel- 
lects perish  annually.  The  men  do  not  die, 
but  their  powers  wither,  or  rather  never 
mature.  Art,  like  everything  else,  repre- 
sents an  escape,  a  survival.  In  any  age  that 
lacks  it,  or  is  weak  in  it,  we  may  look  about 
for  the  enginery  by  which  it  is  crushed.  In 
looking  into  a  past  age  we  are  put  to  infer- 
ence and  conjecture.  We  see  the  mark  of 
fetters  upon  the  Byzantine  soul,  and  we 
begin  dredging  the  dark  waters  of  history 
for  a  metaphysical  cause.  We  cannot  walk 
into  a  Byzantine  shop  and  watch  the  appren- 
86 


LITERATURE 

tice  at  work.  But  in  our  own  time  we  can 
see  the  whole  process  in  action.  We  can 
study  our  modern  Inquisitions  at  leisure, 
and  note  every  mark  that  is  made  upon  a 
soul  that  is  passing  through  them. 

It  does  not  involve  any  indignity  to  the 
pretensions  of  literature  if  we  walk  into 
that  great  bazaar,  modern  journalism,  and 
see  what  is  going  on  there  behind  the 
counters.  Here  is  a  factory  of  popular  art. 
It  is  not  the  whole  of  letters;  but  it  has 
an  influence  on  the  whole  of  letters.  The 
press  fills  the  consciousness  of  the  people. 
A  modern  community  breathes  through  its 
press.  Journalism,  to  be  sure,  is  a  region 
of  letters,  where  all  the  factors  for  truth  are 
at  a  special  and  peculiar  discount.  Its  atten- 
tion is  given  to  near  and  ugly  things,  to 
mean  quarrels,  business  interests,  and  spe- 
cial ends.  Every  country  shows  up  badly 
here.  The  hypocrisy  of  the  press  is  the 
worst  thing  in  England.  It  is  the  worst 
exhibition  of  England's  worst  fault.  The 
press  of  France  gives  you  France  at  her 
weakest.  The  press  of  America  gives  you 
America  at  her  cheapest.  Perhaps  the  study 
of  journalism  in  any  country  would  illus- 
trate the  peculiar  vices  of  that  country;  and 
it  is  fair  to  remember  this  in  examining  our 
37 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

own  press.  But  examine  it  we  must,  for  it 
is  important. 

The  subject  includes  more  than  the  daily 
newspapers.  Those  ephemeral  sheets  that 
flutter  from  the  table  into  the  waste-paper 
basket,  which  are  something  more  than  mere 
newspapers  and  less  than  magazines,  and 
the  magazines  themselves,  which  are  more 
than  budgets  of  gossip  and  less  than  books, 
make  up  a  perpetual  rain  of  paper  and  ink. 
Thousands  of  people  are  engaged  in  writing 
them,  and  millions  in  reading  them.  This 
whole  species  of  literature  is  typical  of  the 
age;  let  us  see  how  it  is  conducted. 

A  journal  is  a  meeting-place  between  the 
forces  of  intellect  and  of  commerce.  The 
men  who  become  editors  always  bear  some 
relation  to  the  intellectual  interests  of  the 
country.  They  make  money,  but  they  make 
it  by  understanding  the  minds  of  people 
who  are  not  taking  money,  but  thought, 
from  the  exchanges  that  the  editors  set  up. 
A  magazine  or  a  newspaper  is  a  shop.  Each 
is  an  experiment  and  represents  a  new  focus, 
a  new  ratio  between  commerce  and  intellect. 
Even  trade  journals  have  columns  devoted 
to  general  information  and  jokes.  The  one 
thing  a  journal  must  have  in  order  to  be  a 
journal   is  circulation.     It  must  be  carried 


LITERATURE 

into  people's  houses,  and  this  is  brought 
about  by  an  impulse  in  the  buyer.  The 
buyer  has  many  opinions  and  modes  of 
thought  that  he  does  not  draw  from  the 
journal,  and  he  is  always  ready  to  drop  a 
journal  that  offends  him.  An  editor  is  thus 
constantly  forced  to  choose  between  affront- 
ing his  public  and  placating  his  public. 
Now,  whatever  arguments  may  be  given  for 
his  taking  one  course  or  the  other,  it  re- 
mains clear  that  in  so  far  as  an  editor  is  not 
publishing  what  he  himself  thinks  of  inter- 
est for  its  own  sake,  he  is  encouraging  in  the 
public  something  else  besides  intellect.  He 
is  subserving  financial,  political,  or  reli- 
gious bias,  or,  it  may  be,  popular  whim. 
He  is,  to  this  extent  at  least,  the  custodian 
and  protector  of  prejudice. 

The  thrift  of  an  editor-owner,  who  is 
building  up  the  circulation  of  a  paper,  tends 
to  keep  him  conservative.  Repetition  is 
safer  than  innovation.  An  especially  strong 
temptation  is  spread  before  the  American 
editor  in  the  shape  of  an  enormous  reading 
public,  made  up  of  people  who  have  a  com- 
mon-school education,  and  who  resemble 
each  other  very  closely  in  their  traits  of 
mind.  There  is  money  to  be  made  by 
any  one  who  discerns  a  new  way  of  re- 
89 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

inforcing  any  prejudice  of  the  American 
people. 

It  has  come  about  very  naturally  during 
the  last  thirty  years,  that  journalism  has 
been  developed  in  America  as  one  of  the 
branches  in  the  science  of  catering  to  the 
masses  on  a  gigantic  scale.  The  different 
kinds  of  conservatism  have  been  banked, 
consolidated,  and,  as  it  were,  marshalled 
under  the  banners  of  as  many  journals. 
Money  and  energy  have  been  expended  in 
collecting  these  vast  audiences,  and  sleepless 
vigilance  is  needed  to  keep  them  together. 

The  great  investments  in  the  good  will 
of  millions  are  nursed  by  editors  who  live 
by  their  talents,  and  who  in  another  age 
would  have  been  intellectual  men.  The 
highest  type  of  editor  now  extant  in  America 
will  as  frankly  regret  his  own  obligation  to 
cater  to  mediocrity,  as  the  business  man  will 
regret  his  obligation  to  pay  blackmail,  or  as 
the  citizen  will  regret  his  obligation  to  vote 
for  one  of  the  parties.  "There  is  nothing 
else  to  do.  I  am  dealing  with  the  money  of 
others.  There  are  not  enough  intelligent 
people  to  count."  He  serves  the  times. 
The  influence  thus  exerted  by  the  public 
(through  the  editor)  upon  the  writer  tends  to 
modify  the  writer  and  make  him  resemble 
90 


LITERATURE 

the  public.  It  is  a  spiritual  pressure  exerted 
by  the  majority  in  favor  of  conformity.  This 
exists  in  all  countries,  but  is  peculiarly 
severe  in  countries  and  ages  where  the 
majority  is  made  up  of  individuals  very 
similar  to  each  other.  The  tyranny  of 
a  uniform  population  always  makes  itself 
felt. 

If  any  man  doubt  the  hide-bound  char- 
acter of  our  journals  to-day,  let  him  try  this 
experiment.  Let  him  write  down  what  he 
thinks  upon  any  matter,  write  a  story  of 
any  length,  a  poem,  a  prayer,  a  speech. 
Let  him  assume,  as  he  writes  it,  that  it  can- 
not be  published,  and  let  him  satisfy  his 
individual  taste  in  the  subject,  size,  mood, 
and  tenor  of  the  whole  composition.  Then 
let  him  begin  his  peregrinations  to  find  in 
which  one  of  the  ten  thousand  journals  of 
America  there  is  a  place  for  his  ideas  as 
they  stand.  We  have  more  journals  than 
any  other  country.  The  whole  field  of  ideas 
has  been  covered;  every  vehicle  of  opinion 
has  its  policy,  its  methods,  its  precedents. 
A  hundred  will  receive  him  if  he  shaves 
this,  pads  that,  cuts  it  in  half;  but  not  one 
of  them  will  trust  him  as  he  stands,  "Good, 
but  eccentric,"  "  Good,  but  too  long,"  "  Good, 
but  new." 

91 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

Let  us  follow  the  steps  of  this  withering 
influence.  A  young  illustrator  does  an  etch- 
ing that  he  likes.  He  is  told  to  reduce  it 
to  the  conventional  standard.  This  is  easy, 
but  what  is  happening  in  the  process?  He 
blurs  the  fine  edges  of  vision,  not  only  on 
the  plate,  but  in  his  own  mind.  The  real 
injury  to  intellect  is  not  done  in  the  edito- 
rial sanctum.  It  is  done  in  the  mind  of  the 
writer  who  himself  attempts  to  cater  to  the 
prejudice  of  others.  A  man  rewrites  a  scene 
in  a  story  to  please  a  public.  In  order  to 
do  this  he  is  obliged  to  forget  what  his  story 
was  about.  He  is  talking  by  rote ;  he  is 
making  an  imitation.  Does  this  seem  a 
small  thing?  Let  any  one  do  it  once  and 
see  where  it  leads  him.  The  attitude  of  the 
whole  human  bging  towards  his  whole  life 
is  changed  by  the  experience.  Do  it  twice, 
and  you  can  hardly  shake  off  the  practice. 
Write  and  publish  six  editorials  for  the 
"  Universalist, "  and  then  sit  down  to  write 
one  not  in  the  style  of  the  "Universalist." 
You  will  find  it,  practically,  an  impossibility. 

The  notable  lack  in  our  literature  is  this: 
the  prickles  and  irregularities  of  personal 
feeling  have  been  pumice-stoned  away.  It 
is  too  smooth.  There  is  an  absence  of 
individuality,  of  private  opinion.  This  is 
92 


LITERATURE 

the  same  lack  that    curses  our   politics,  — 
the  absence  of  private  opinion. 

The  sacrifice  in  political  life  is  honesty, 
in  literary  life  is  intellect;  but  the  closer 
you  examine  honesty  and  intellect  the  more 
clearly  they  appear  to  be  the  same  thing. 
Suppose  that  a  judge,  in  order  to  please  a 
boss,  awards  Parson  Jones'  cow  to  Deacon 
Brown;  does  he  boldly  admit  this  even  to 
himself?  Never.  He  writes  an  able  opin- 
ion in  which  he  befogs  his  intelligence,  and 
convinces  himself  that  he  has  arrived  at  his 
award  by  logical  steps.  In  like  manner, 
the  revising  editor  who  reads  with  the  eyes 
of  the  farmer's  daughter  begins  to  lose  his 
own.  He  is  extinguishing  some  sparks  of 
instructive  reality  which  would  offend  —  and 
benefit  —  the  farmer's  daughter;  and  he  is 
obliterating  a  part  of  his  own  mind  with 
every  stroke  of  his  blue  pencil.  He  is  de- 
vitalizing literature  by  erasing  personality. 
He  does  this  in  the  money  interests  of  a 
syndicate ;  but  the  debasing  effect  upon  char- 
acter is  the  same  as  if  it  were  done  at  the 
dictate  of  the  German  Emperor.  The  harm 
done  in  either  case  is  intellectual. 

Take  another  example.     A  reporter  writes 
up  a  public  meeting,  but  colors  it  with  the 
creed  of  his  journal.     Can  he  do  this  accept- 
93 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

ably  without  abjuring  his  own  senses?  He 
is  competing  with  men  whose  every  energy 
is  bent  on  seeing  the  occasion  as  the  news- 
paper wishes  it  seen.  Consider  the  immense 
difficulty  of  telling  the  truth  on  the  witness 
stand,  and  judge  whether  good  reporting  is 
easy.  The  newspaper  trade,  as  now  con- 
ducted, is  prostitution.  It  mows  down  the 
boys  as  they  come  from  the  colleges.  It 
defaces  the  very  desire  for  truth,  and  leaves 
them  without  a  principle  to  set  a  clock 
by.  They  grow  to  disbelieve  in  the  reality 
of  ideas.  But  these  are  our  future  literati, 
our  poets  and  essayists,  our  historians  and 
publicists. 

The  experts  who  sit  in  the  offices  of  the 
journals  of  the  country  have  so  long  used 
their  minds  as  commercial  instruments,  that 
it  never  occurs  to  them  to  publish  or  not 
publish  anything,  according  to  their  personal 
views.  They  do  not  know  that  every  time 
they  subserve  prejudice  they  are  ruining 
intellect.  If  there  were  an  editor  who  had 
any  suspicion  of  the  way  the  world  is  put 
together,  he  would  respect  talent  as  he 
respects  honor.  It  would  be  impossible  for 
him  to  make  his  living  by  this  traffic.  If 
he  knew  what  he  was  doing,  he  would  prefer 
penury. 

94 


LITERATURE 

These  men,  then,  have  not  the  least  idea 
of  the  function  they  fulfil.  No  more  has 
the  agent  of  the  Insurance  Company  who 
corrupts  a  legislature.  The  difference  in 
degree  between  the  two  iniquities  is  enor- 
mous, because  one  belongs  to  that  region  in 
the  scale  of  morality  which  is  completely 
understood,  and  the  other  does  not.  We  do 
not  excuse  the  insurance  agent;  we  will  not 
allow  him  to  plead  ignorance.  He  commits 
a  penal  offence.  We  will  not  allow  selfish- 
ness to  trade  upon  selfishness  and  steal  from 
the  public  in  this  form.  But  what  law  can 
protect  the  public  interest  in  the  higher 
faculties?  What  statute  can  enforce  artistic 
truth  ? 

We  actually  forbid  a  man  by  statute  to 
sell  his  vote,  because  a  vote  is  understood 
to  be  an  opinion,  a  thing  dependent  on 
rational  and  moral  considerations.  You 
cannot  buy  and  sell  it  without  turning  it 
into  something  else.  The  exercise  of  that 
infinitesimal  fraction  of  public  power  repre- 
sented by  one  man's  vote  is  hedged  about 
with  penalties;  because  the  logic  of  practi- 
cal government  has  forced  us  to  see  its  im- 
portance. But  the  harm  done  to  a  community 
by  the  sale  of  a  vote  does  not  follow  by 
virtue  of  the  statute,  but  by  virtue  of  a  law 
95 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

of  influence  of  which  the  statute  is  the 
recognition.  The  same  law  governs  the 
sale  of  any  opinion,  whether  it  be  conveyed 
in  a  book  review  or  in  a  political  speech, 
in  a  picture  of  life  and  manners,  a  poem,  a 
novel,  or  an  etching.  There  is  no  depart- 
ment of  life  in  which  you  can  lie  for  private 
gain  without  doing  harm.  The  grosser 
forms  of  it  give  us  the  key  to  the  subtler 
ones,  and  the  jail  becomes  the  symbol  of 
that  condition  into  which  the  violation  of 
truth  will  shut  any  mind. 

So  far  as  any  man  comes  directly  in  con- 
tact with  the  agencies  of  organized  litera- 
ture, let  him  remember  that  his  mind  is  at 
stake.  They  can  change  you,  but  you  cannot 
change  them,  except  by  changing  the  pub- 
lic they  reflect.  The  faculties  of  man  are 
as  strong  as  steel  if  properly  used,  but  they 
are  like  the  down  on  a  peach  if  improperly 
used.  What  shall  a  man  take  in  exchange 
for  his  soul  ?  No  man  has  the  privilege 
upon  this  earth  of  being  more  than  one 
person.  In  this  matter  of  expression,  it  is 
the  last  ten  per  cent  of  accuracy  that  saves 
or  sells  you.  Talent  evaporates  as  easily  as 
a  delegate  holds  his  tongue  or  a  lawyer 
smiles  to  a  rich  man;  and  the  injury  is 
irremediable.  Let  a  man  not  alter  a  line  or 
96 


LITERATURE 

cut  a  paragraph  at  the  suggestion  of  an 
editor.  Those  are  the  very  words  that  are 
valuable.  "Ah,"  you  say,  "but  I  need 
criticism."  Then  go  to  a  critic.  Consult 
the  man  who  is  farthest  away  from  this 
influence,  some  one  who  cannot  read  the 
magazines,  some  one  who  does  not  have  to 
read  them.  Your  public,  when  you  get  one, 
will  qualify  the  general  public;  but  you 
must  reach  it  as  a  whole  man.  The  writer's 
course  is  easy  compared  to  that  of  the 
reform  politician,  because  printing  is  cheap. 
He  will  get  heard  immediately.  He  covers 
the  whole  of  the  United  States  while  the 
other  is  canvassing  a  ward.  Literary  self- 
assertion  is  as  much  needed  as  any  of  the 
virtue  we  pray  for  in  politics.  A  resonant 
and  unvexed  independence  makes  a  man's 
words  stir  the  fibres  in  other  men;  and  it 
matters  little  whether  you  label  his  words 
literature  or  politics. 

The  difficulty  in  any  revolt  against  cus- 
tom, the  struggle  a  man  has  in  getting  his 
mind  free  from  the  cobwebs  of  restraint, 
always  turns  out  to  involve  financial  dis- 
tress; and  this  holds  true  of  the  writer's 
attempt  to  override  the  senseless  restrictions 
of  the  press.  The  magazines  pay  hand- 
somely, and  pay  at  once.  A  writer  must 
7  97 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

earn  his  bread;  a  man  must  support  his 
family.  We  accept  this  necessity  with  such 
a  hearty  concurrence,  and  the  necessity 
itself  becomes  so  sacred,  that  it  seems  to 
imply  an  answer  to  all  ethical  and  artistic 
questions.  We  almost  think  that  nature 
will  connive  at  malpractice  done  in  so  good 
a  cause  as  the  support  of  a  family.  The 
subject  must  be  looked  at  more  narrowly. 
The  spur  of  poverty  is  popularly  regarded 
not  only  as  an  excuse  for  all  bad  work,  but 
as  a  prerequisite  to  all  good  work.  There 
is  a  misconception  in  this  wholesale  appro- 
priation of  a  partial  truth.  The  economic 
laws  are  valuable  and  suggestive,  but  they 
are  founded  on  the  belief  that  a  man  will 
pursue  his  own  business  interests  exclu- 
sively. This  is  never  entirely  true  even  in 
trade,  and  the  doctrines  of  the  economists 
become  more  and  more  misleading  when 
applied  to  fields  of  life  where  the  money 
motive  becomes  incidental.  The  law  of 
supply  and  demand  does  not  govern  the  pro- 
duction of  sonnets. 

Let  us  lay  aside  theory  and  observe  the 
effects  of  want  upon  the  artist  and  his  work. 
As  a  stimulus  to  the  whole  man,  a  prod  to 
get  him  into  action  and  keep  him  active, 
the  spur  of  poverty  is  a  blessing.  But  if  it 
98 


LITERATURE 

enter  into  the  detail  of  his  attention,  while 
he  is  at  work,  it  is  damnation. 

A  man  at  work  is  like  a  string  that  is 
vibrating.  Touch  it  with  a  feather  and  it  is 
numb.  A  singer  will  sing  flat  if  he  sees  a 
friend  in  the  audience.  Even  a  trained  and 
cold-blooded  lawyer  who  is  trying  a  case, 
will  not  be  at  his  best  if  he  is  watched  by 
some  one  whom  he  wants  to  impress. 

The  artist  is  the  easiest  of  all  men  to 
upset.  He  is  dealing  with  subtle  and  fluid 
things,  — memories,  allusions,  associations. 
It  is  all  gossamer  and  sunlight  when  he 
begins.  It  is  to  be  gossamer  and  sunlight 
when  he  is  finished.  But  in  the  interim  it 
is  bricks  and  mortar,  rubble  and  white  lead. 
And  the  writer  —  I  do  not  say  that  he  must 
be  more  free  from  cares  than  the  next  man 
—  but  he  must  not  let  into  the  mint  and 
forge  of  his  thought  some  immaterial  and 
petty  fact  about  himself,  for  this  will  make 
him  self-conscious.  Consider  how  ingenuous, 
how  unexpected,  how  natural  is  good  con- 
versation. At  one  moment  you  have  nothing 
to  say,  at  the  next  a  vista  of  ideas  has 
opened.  They  come  crowding  in,  and  the 
telling  of  them  reveals  new  vistas.  It  is 
the  same  with  the  writer.  In  the  process 
of  writing  the  story  is  made.  There  is 
99 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

really  nothing  to  say  or  do  in  the  world 
until  you  make  your  start,  and  then  the  sig- 
nificance begins  to  steam  out  of  the  mate- 
rials. And  here,  in  the  act  and  heat  of 
creation,  to  have  the  cold  fear  thrust  in,  "  I 
cannot  use  that  phrase  because  the  editor 
will  think  it  too  strong,"  is  enough  to  chill 
the  brain  of  Rabelais.  Human  nature  can- 
not stand  such  handling.  Do  this  to  a  man 
and  you  break  his  spirit.  He  becomes 
tame,  calculating,  and  ingenious.  His 
powers  are  frozen. 

It  is  impossible  not  to  see  in  contem- 
porary journalism  a  slaughter-house  for 
mind.  Here  we  have  a  great  whale  that 
browses  on  the  young  and  eats  them  by  thou- 
sands. This  is  the  seamy  side  of  popular 
education.  The  low  level  of  the  class  at 
the  dame's  school  keeps  the  bright  boys 
back  and  makes  dunces  of  them. 

We  have  been  dealing  in  all  this  matter 
with  one  of  the  deepest  facts  of  life,  to  wit, 
the  influence  that  society  at  large  has  in 
cutting  down  and  narrowing  the  develop- 
ment of  the  individual.  The  newspaper 
business  displays  the  whole  operation  very 
vividly;  but  we  may  see  the  same  thing 
happening  in  the  other  walks  of  life.  There 
arrives  a  time  in  the  career  of  most  men 


LITERATURE 

when  their  powers  become  fixed.  Men  seem 
to  expand  to  definite  shapes,  like  those 
Japanese  cuttings  that  open  out  into  flowers 
and  plants  when  you  drop  them  into  warm 
water.  After  reaching  his  saturation  point 
each  man  fills  his  niche  in  society  and 
changes  little.  He  goes  on  doing  whatever 
he  was  engaged  upon  at  the  time  he  touched 
his  limit. 

We  almost  believe  that  every  man  has 
his  predestinate  size  and  shape,  and  that 
some  obscure  law  of  growth  arrests  one  man 
at  thirty  and  the  next  at  forty  years  of  age. 
This  is  partly  true;  but  the  law  is  not 
obscure.  It  is  not  because  the  men  stop 
growing  that  they  repeat  themselves,  but 
they  stop  growing  because  they  repeat  them- 
selves. They  cease  to  experiment;  they 
cease  to  search.  The  lawyer  adopts  routine 
methods;  the  painter  follows  up  his  suc- 
cess with  an  imitation  of  his  success;  the 
writer  finds  a  recipe  for  style  or  plot.  Every 
one  saves  himself  the  trouble  of  re-examin- 
ing the  consents  of  his  own  mind.  He  has 
the  best  possible  reason  for  doing  this. 
The  public  will  not  pay  for  his  experiments 
as  well  as  it  will  for  his  routine  work.  But 
the  laws  of  nature  are  deaf  to  his  reasons. 
Research  is  the  price  of  intellectual  growth. 

IOI 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

If  you  face  the  problems  of  life  freshly  and 
squarely  each  morning,  you  march.  If  you 
accept  any  solution  as  good  enough,  you 
drop. 

For  there  is  no  finality  and  ending  place 
to  intellect.  Examine  any  bit  of  politics, 
any  law-case,  or  dornestic  complication, 
until  you  understand  your  own  reasons  for 
feeling  as  you  do  about  it.  Then  write  the 
matter  down  carefully  and  conclusively,  and 
you  will  find  that  you  have  done  no  more 
than  restate  the  problem  in  a  new  form. 
The  more  complete  your  exposition,  the 
more  loudly  it  calls  for  new  solution.  The 
masterly  analysis  of  Tolstoi,  his  accurate 
explanations,  his  diagnosis  and  dissection  of 
human  life,  leave  us  with  a  picture  of  soci- 
ety that  for  unsolved  mystery  competes  with 
the  original.  But  the  point  lies  here.  You 
must  lay  bare  your  whole  soul  in  the  state- 
ment you  make.  You  must  resolutely  set 
down  everything  that  touches  the  matter. 
Until  you  do  this,  the  question  refuses  to 
assume  its  next  shape.  You  cannot  flinch 
and  qualify  in  your  first  book,  and  speak 
plainly  in  your  second. 

It  is  the  act  of  utterance  that  draws  out 
the  powers  in  a  man  and  makes  him  a  master 
of  his  own  mind.    Without  the  actual  experi- 

I02 


LITERATURE 

ence  of  writing  Lohengrin,  Wagner  could 
not  have  discovered  Parsifal.  The  works  of 
men  who  are  great  enough  to  get  their  whole 
thought  uttered  at  each  deliverance,  form  a 
progression  like  the  deductions  of  a  mathe- 
matician. These  men  are  never  satisfied 
with  a  past  accomplishment.  Their  eyes 
are  on  questions  that  beckon  to  them  from 
the  horizon.  Their  faculties  are  replenished 
with  new  energy  because  they  seek.  They 
are  driving  their  ploughs  through  a  sea  of 
thought,  intent,  unresting,  resourceful,  cre- 
ative. They  are  discoverers,  and  just  to  the 
extent  that  lesser  men  are  worth  anything 
they  are  discoverers  too. 

Beauty  and  elevation  flash  from  the  cur- 
rents set  up  by  intense  speculation.  Beauty 
is  not  the  aim  of  the  writer.  His  aim  must 
be  truth.  But  beauty  and  elevation  shine 
out  of  him  while  he  is  on  the  quest.  His 
mind  is  on  the  problem;  and  as  he  unravels 
it  and  displays  it,  he  communicates  his  own 
spirit,  as  it  were  incidentally,  as  it  were 
unwittingly,  and  this  is  the  part  that  goes 
out  from  him  and  does  his  work  in  the 
world. 


103 


V 

PRINCIPLES 

Speech  is  a  very  small  part  of  human  inter- 
course. Indeed  speech  is  often  not  con- 
nected with  the  real  currents  of  intercourse. 
A  comic  actor  has  made  you  happy  before 
he  has  uttered  a  word.  This  is  by  the 
responsive  vibration  of  your  apparatus  to 
his.  The  external  speech  and  gesture  help 
the  transfer  of  power,  and  that  is  all  they 
do.  The  communion,  upon  whatever  plane 
of  being  it  takes  place,  is  a  contagion,  and 
goes  forward  by  leaps  and  darts,  like  the 
action  of  frost  on  a  window-pane.  An  angry 
friend  comes  into  my  room,  and  before  he 
has  uttered  a  word  I  am  in  a  blaze  of 
anger.  A  baby  too  young  to  speak  does 
some  naughty  thing.  I  remonstrate  with 
him  in  a  rational  way.  Perhaps  I  repeat  to 
him  Kant's  maxim  from  the  Critique  of  Prac- 
tical Reason.  The  child  understands  at  once 
and  is  grateful  for  the  treatment.  Now,  ob- 
serve this,  that  if  I  said  the  same  thing  to  a 
104 


PRINCIPLES 

grown  man  in  the  same  tone,  it  would  be  to 
the  tone  and  not  to  the  argument  that  he 
would  respond. 

The  exchange  of  energy  between  man  and 
man  is  so  rapid  that  language  becomes  a 
bystander.  It  is  like  the  passage  of  the 
electrical  current,  —  we  receive  an  impres- 
sion or  a  message,  or  twenty  messages  at 
once.  All  this  is  the  result  of  suggestion 
and  inference.  No  strange  phenomenon  is 
here  alluded  to.  The  situation  is  the  nor- 
mal and  constant  situation  whenever  two 
human  beings  meet.  The  only  mystery 
about  it  is  that  our  senses  should  be  so 
much  more  acute  than  we  knew.  Ask  a 
man  to  dinner  and  talk  to  him  about  the 
Suez  Canal,  and  the  next  morning  your  wife 
will  be  apt  to  give  a  truer  account  of  him 
than  you  can  give.  She  has  been  knitting 
in  the  corner  and  thinking  about  the  best 
place  to  buy  children's  shoes,  but  she  knows 
which  coils  in  her  brain  have  been  played 
upon  by  the  brain  of  the  stranger.  The 
reason  your  wife  knows  that  your  Suez  friend 
is  no  saint,  is  that  she  feels  that  certain 
strings  of  the  benevolent  harp  that  is  sound- 
ing in  herself  are  not  being  reinforced. 
There  are  dead  notes  in  him. 

The  sensitiveness  of  children  is  so  com- 
105 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

mon  a  thing  that  we  forget  its  explanation. 
It  is  just  because  the  child  cannot  follow 
the  argument,  that  he  is  free  from  the  illu- 
sion that  the  argument  is  the  main  point. 
The  lobes  of  his  brain  get  a  shock  and  re- 
spond to  it  ingenuously. 

These  facts  have  been  neglected  by  phi- 
losophers, because  the  facts  defy  formula- 
tion. You  cannot  get  them  into  a  statement. 
They  are  life.  But  in  the  practical,  worka- 
day world,  they  have  always  been  understood. 
Men  of  action  owe  their  success  to  the  habit 
of  using  their  minds  and  bodies  in  a  direct 
way.  Men  in  every  profession  rely  upon  the 
accuracy  of  direct  impressions.  The  great 
doctor,  or  the  great  general,  or  the  great 
business  man  uses  the  whole  of  his  sensi- 
bilities in  each  act  of  reading  a  man.  There 
is  no  other  way  to  read  him  correctly.  Peo- 
ple whose  brains  are  preoccupied  with  for- 
mulated knowledge  are  not  apt  to  be  as  good 
judges  of  character  as  spontaneous  persons. 
Their  thoughts  are  on  logic.  They  follow 
what  is  said.  A  very  small  fraction  of  them 
is  alive.  They  are  like  chess-players  who 
are  not  listening  to  the  opera. 

The  answer  to  any  question  in  psychology 
always  lies  under  our  hand.     We  have  only 
to  ask  what  the  normal  man  does.     It  will 
106 


PRINCIPLES 

be  found  that  he  uses  his  faculties  according 
to  their  nature,  though  it  may  be,  he  is 
embryonic  and  inarticulate.  We  speak  of 
great  men  as  "simple,"  because  they  retain 
a  sensitiveness  to  immediate  impressions 
very  common  in  uneducated  persons  and  in 
children.  Their  thought  subserves  the  direct 
currents  of  suggestion.  Their  instincts  rule 
them.  Their  minds  serve  them.  They  are 
great-  because  of  this  power  to  read  the 
thoughts  of  others  through  the  pores  of  their 
skin,  and  answer  blindfold  to  unuttered  ap- 
peals, whether  of  weakness  or  of  strength. 
To  do  this  means  intellect,  whether  in 
Napoleon  or  Gladstone.  Every  pianist  and 
public  speaker,  every  actor  and  singer  knows 
that  his  whole  art  consists  in  getting  his 
intellectual  apparatus  into  focus,  so  that  the 
vibrations  of  his  formulated  thought  shall 
correspond  and  fall  in  with  the  direct  and 
spontaneous  vibrations  of  his  audience. 
This  is  truth,  this  is  the  discovery  of  law, 
this  is  art. 

Men  are  profound  and  complicated  crea- 
tures, and  when  any  one  of  them  expresses 
the  laws  of  his  construction  and  reveals  his 
own  natural  history,  he  is  called  a  genius. 
But  he  is  a  genius  solely  because  he  is 
comprehensible,  and  others  say  of  him,  "  I 
107 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

am  like  that."  His  suggestions  carry.  Their 
extreme  subtlety  baffles  analysis,  just  as  the 
suggestions  of  real  life  baffle  analysis.  The 
miracle  of  reality  in  art  is  due  to  refine- 
ment of  suggestion.  We  cannot  follow  its 
steps  or  say  how  it  is  done.  We  see  only 
the  idea.  Shakespeare  gives  you  all  the 
meaning,  and  none  of  the  means.  This  is 
first-class  artificial  communication.  It  al- 
most competes  with  the  every-day,  common- 
place, familiar  transfer  of  the  incommunicable 
essence  of  life  from  man  to  man. 

Our  present  problem  is,  how  to  influence 
people  for  their  good.  It  is  clear  that  when 
you  and  another  man  meet,  the  personal 
equation  is  the  controlling  thing.  If  you 
are  more  high-minded  than  he,  the  way  to 
influence  him  is  to  stick  to  your  own  beliefs ; 
for  they  alone  can  keep  you  high-minded. 
They  alone  can  make  you  vibrate.  It  is 
they  and  not  you  that  will  do  the  work. 
There  you  stand,  and  there  he  stands;  and 
you  can  only  qualify  him  by  the  ideas  that 
control  you.  It  makes  no  difference  whether 
you  are  an  emperor  and  he  a  peasant,  or  you 
a  Good  Government  Club  man  and  he  a  mer- 
chant, the  same  forces  are  at  work.  Shift 
your  ground,  and  he  feels  the  shift;  you  are 
encouraging  him  to  be  shifty,  like  yourself. 
1 08 


PRINCIPLES 

What  can  you  do  for  him  except  to  follow 
your  conscience?  But  this  is  equally  true 
of  every  meeting  of  all  men  everywhere. 
You  address  a  labor  meeting  and  talk  about 
the  Philippines.  You  meet  the  Turkish 
Ambassador  and  talk  about  Kipling's  poems. 
You  talk  to  your  son  about  kite-flying.  To 
each  of  these  contacts  with  another's  mind 
you  bring  the  same  power.  If  you  start  with 
the  psychical  value  of  6,  no  matter  what  you 
do,  a  cross-section  of  your  whole  activity  in 
the  world  will  at  any  instant  of  time  read  6. 
It  may  be  that  a  page  of  ciphering  cannot 
express  the  formula,  but  it  will  mean  6. 

The  immense  amount  of  thought  that 
man  has  given,  during  the  last  few  thousand 
years,  to  his  social  arrangements  and  his 
destiny,  has  filled  our  minds  with  tangled 
formulas,  and  has  attached  our  affection  to 
particular  matters.  The  pomp  of  preambles 
and  the  stress  of  language  stun  us.  There 
is  so  much  of  organized  society.  There  are 
so  many  good  ends.  If  there  were  only  one 
man  in  the  world,  we  know  that  it  would  be 
impossible  to  do  good  to  him  by  suggesting 
evil.  We  know  that  if  we  gave  him  a  hint 
that  contained  both  good  and  evil,  the  good 
would  do  him  good,  and  the  evil,  evil.  If  we 
were  bent  on  nothing  but  benefit,  we  should 
109 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

have  to  confine  ourselves  to  suggestions  of 
unalloyed  virtue.  But  the  world  is  such  a 
tangle  of  personalities,  that  we  do  not  hesi- 
tate to  mix  a  little  evil  in  the  good  we  do, 
hoping  that  the  evil  will  not  be  operative. 
We  half  believe  that  there  may,  somewhere 
in  the  community,  be  a  hitch  in  the  multipli- 
cation table  that  brings  out  good  for  evil. 
Liberty  and  democracy  are  thought  to  be 
such  worthy  ends,  that  we  must  obtain  them 
by  any  means  and  all  means,  even  by  hiring 
mercenaries.  Can  we  wonder  that  in  the 
past,  men's  minds  were  staggered  by  the  im- 
portance of  a  papacy  or  of  some  dynastic  suc- 
cession? To-day  everybody  jumps  to  shield 
vice  because  it  is  called  republicanism  or 
democracy.  The  irony  of  history  could  go 
no  further. 

Let  us  consider  our  local  reforms  by  the 
light  of  these  views.  Civil  service  laws, 
ballot-reform,  elections,  taxation, — dissolve 
all  these  into  acts  and  impulses,  and  see 
whether  the  laws  of  human  influence  do  not 
make  a  short  cut  through  them  all,  like 
X-rays.  No  matter  what  I  talk  about  to  the 
Emperor,  I  am  really  conveying  to  him  by 
suggestion  a  tendency  to  become  as  good  or 
as  bad  a  man  as  I  myself.  Chinese  Gordon 
turned  a  dynamo  of  personal  force  upon  the 
no 


PRINCIPLES 

Orientals,  and  they  understood  him.  He 
was  talking  religion,  and  he  gave  it  to  them 
straight.  Now  all  religion,  as  everybody 
knows,  is  purely  a  matter  of  suggestion. 
But  so  is  all  other  intercourse.  We  want 
honesty.  Well,  what  makes  people  honest? 
Honesty.  Does  anything  else  spread  the 
influence  of  honesty,  except  honesty?  Are 
we  here  facing  a  scientific  fact?  Is  this  a 
law  of  the  transference  of  human  energy,  or 
is  it  not  ?  If  it  is,  you  cannot  beat  it.  You 
cannot  imagine  any  situation  where  your 
own  total  force,  in  favor  of  honesty,  will 
consist  of  anything  else  than  honesty.  Of 
course  you  may  put  a  case  where  honesty 
will  result  in  somebody's  death.  If  in  that 
case,  you  want  his  life,  why,  lie.  But  what 
you  will  get  will  be  his  life,  not  the  spread 
of  honesty.  If  the  event  is  chronicled,  you 
will  find  it  used  as  a  means  of  justifying 
dishonesty  forever  afterwards. 

We  do  not  want  any  of  these  reforms 
except  as  a  means  of  stimulating  character, 
and  it  is  a  law  of  nature  that  character  can 
only  be  stimulated  directly.  Sincerity  is  the 
only  need,  courage  the  all-sufficing  virtue. 
We  can  dump  them  into  every  occasion,  and 
sleep  sound  at  night.  What  interest  can 
any  rational  man  have  in  our  municipal 
in 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

issues  except  as  a  grindstone  on  which  to 
whet  the  people's  moral  sense?  How  is  it 
possible  to  deceive  ourselves  into  looking 
at  our  own  political  activity  from  any  other 
standpoint  than  this?  You  are  to  make  a 
speech  at  Cooper  Union  on  ballot  reform. 
Somebody  says,  "Do  not  mention  the  liquor 
question  or  you  will  lose  votes."  But  some 
phase  of  that  question  seems  to  you  perti- 
nent and  important.  Shall  you  omit  and 
submit?  That  would  be  an  odd  way  of 
stimulating  character.  The  need  of  the 
times  is  not  ballot  laws  but  sincerity.  The 
maximum  that  any  man  can  do  toward 
the  spread  of  sincerity  is  to  display  it  him- 
self. 

All  the  virtues  spread  themselves  by 
direct  propagation;  and  the  vices  likewise. 
Our  people  are  deficient  in  righteous  indig- 
nation. When  you  see  a  man  righteously 
indignant,  rejoice;  this  is  the  seed,  this 
the  force.  Nothing  else  will  arouse  courage 
but  courage,  faith  but  faith.  You  see,  for 
instance,  a  knot  of  men  who  are  really  indig- 
nant at  the  injustice  of  the  times.  But 
their  indignation  seems  to  you  a  danger; 
because  it  is  likely  to  defeat  some  candi- 
date, some  pet  measure  of  yours.  You  wish 
to  allay  it.     You  wish  yourself  well  rid  of 


PRINCIPLES 

this  sacred  indignation;  it  is  inconvenient. 
Open  your  eyes  to  the  light  of  science. 
Here  is  a  spark  of  that  fire  with  which 
everybody  ought  to  be  filled.  All  your 
scheming  was  only  for  the  purpose  of  get- 
ting this  fire.      Then  foment  it. 

Virtue  then,  is  a  mode  of  motion,  or  it  is 
an  attitude  of  mind  in  a  human  organism, 
which  enables  that  organism  to  transmit 
virtue  to  others.  But  vice  is  also  a  mere 
attitude  of  mind  by  which  vice  is  trans- 
mitted. We  know  less  about  the  natural 
history  of  vice  than  we  do  of  dipsomania 
and  consumption;  but  we  know  this  much, 
that  the  vices  are  co-related,  and  breed  one 
another  in  transitu;  the  tendency  being 
towards  lighter  forms  in  the  later  catchers. 
Avoid  another's  guilty  side,  and  you  rein- 
force it;  sympathize  with  it,  and  you  catch 
his  disease,  or  some  disease.  I  have  held 
hands  with  my  friend  (who  is  in  the  wrong) 
over  his  family  troubles,  and  it  has  given 
me  the  distemper  for  a  week.  The  German 
actor,  Devrient,  went  mad  while  studying 
the  inmates  of  asylums,  as  a  preparation  to 
playing  King  Lear.  It  was  not  the  liv- 
ing in  asylums  that  drove  him  mad,  but 
his  sympathetic  attitude  toward  the  disease. 
This  exposed  him.  Why  is  it  we  commend 
8  113 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

the  man  whose  antagonism  to  crooked  work 
is  so  great  that  he  shows  a  tempter  the  door 
before  he  has  finished  his  proposition  ?  Par- 
leying is  not  only  a  danger;  it  is  the  begin- 
ning of  the  trouble  itself. 

It  is  very  difficult  and  very  odious  offend- 
ing people,  by  forcing  them  to  see  in  which 
direction    our  wheels   really  go  round;  and 
yet  the  alternative  is  to  have  our  machinery 
forced  back  to  a  standstill.     We  are  inter- 
locked with  other  people  and  cannot  break 
free.     We   are   held    in   place  by  fate,    and 
played    upon   against  our  will.     When  you 
see  cruelty  going  on  before  you,  you  are  put 
to  the  alternative  of  interposing  to  stop  it,  or 
of  losing  your  sensibility.     There  is  a  law 
of  growth  here  involved.     It  is  inexorable. 
You  are  at  the  mercy  of  it.     You  wish  your- 
self elsewhere,  but  you  are  here ;  you  are  a 
mere   illustration    of    pitiless   and   undying 
force.     The  part  you  take,  may  run  through 
a  fit  of  bad  temper  or  malice.     It  may  turn 
to   covetousness   or   conceit,  who  can   tell? 
Some  poison  has  entered  your  eye  because 
you  looked  negligently  upon  corruption.     It 
will   cost  you  some  part  of  your  sense   of 
smell.     "Use  or  lose,"  says    Nature   when 
she  gives  us  capacities.     What  you  condone, 
you  support ;  what  you  neglect,  you  confirm. 
114 


PRINCIPLES 

It  is  true  that  your  confirmation  and  sup- 
port are  managed  through  the  mechanism  of 
blindness.  All  the  evil  in  the  world  re- 
ceives its  chief  support  from  the  people 
whose  only  connection  with  it  is  that  they 
do  not  fight  it,  nor  see  it.  Where  politics  is 
involved  scarcely  a  man  in  America  knows 
the  difference  between  right  and  wrong. 
Our  mayoralty  contest  five  years  ago  would 
have  left  Lot  searching  for  a  man  who  could 
tell  black  from  white.  It  was  a  clear  moral 
issue.  But  it  arose  in  politics:  we  could 
not  see  it.  That  we  have  intellectual 
cataract  is  entirely  due  to  the  habit  of  con- 
doning embezzlement.  It  is  a  secondary 
form  of  the  endemic  theft,  caught  by  the 
by-standers.  The  best  people  in  town  had 
it.  If  they  had  been  lifting  their  hands 
against  theft  during  the  preceding  years, 
they  never  would  have  caught  it. 

Of  course  we  support  all  the  good  in  the 
world,  as  well  as  all  the  evil ;  and  the  ratio 
in  which  we  do  both  changes  at  every 
moment.  It  radiates  forth  from  us,  and  is 
read  correctly  by  every  baby  as  he  passes  in 
his  perambulator.  Close  thinking,  and  fresh 
observation  of  things  too  familiar  to  be 
noticed,    bring  us  to  this  point. 

Now,  just  as  no  complexity  of  institutions 
US 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

affects  the  transfer  of  virtue,  so  none  affects 
the  transfer  and  propagation  of  vice.  Yes- 
terday you  were  all  for  virtue.  You  were 
for  leading  a  revolution  against  the  bosses, 
and  were  ready  to  work  and  subscribe  and 
vote.  You  were  a  man  with  the  heart  of  a 
man.  But  to-day  you  are  chop-fallen.  "The 
thing  cannot  be  done.  It  is  not  the  year." 
The  degradation  of  your  character  is  seen  in 
your  low  spirits,  and  in  the  jaded  and  sophis- 
tical commonplaces  you  pour  forth.  I  know 
the  academical  reasons  for  this  change  in 
you.  I  can  express  it  in  terms  of  ballot-law 
and  civil  service.  But  what  is  it  that  really 
has  happened? 

The  power  that  has  struck  you  was  focal- 
ized the  day  before  yesterday  in  the  office 
of  some  law-broking  politicians;  and  the 
direct  rays  of  base  passion  have  struck 
straight  through  stone  walls  and  constitu- 
tions, and,  falling  upon  you,  have  stopped 
your  wheels.  In  them  it  was  avarice  and 
ambition.  In  you  it  is  doubt.  A  drowsy 
inertia  overcomes  you,  a  blindness  of  the 
will.  That  is  what  has  really  happened. 
The  rest  is  illusion  and  metaphysical  talk. 
See,  now,  the  real  curse  of  injustice;  it 
takes  away  the  sight  from  the  eyes,  and 
that  in  a  night. 

116 


PRINCIPLES 

Is  it  not  perfectly  natural  that  Tammany 
Hall  should  be  everywhere,  at  all  tables,  in 
all  churches,  in  all  consciences,  when  these 
electrical  currents  run  between  man  and 
man  and  connect  them  so  easily? 

I  read  in  the  newspaper  that  a  well-known 
man  is  at  Albany  in  the  interests  of  a  gas 
deal.  He  cannot  get  his  way  in  the  city,  and 
is  putting  up  a  job  with  the  legislature.  I 
see  the  thing  going  through,  —  a  thing 
utterly  cynical,  utterly  corrupt.  No  paper 
will  explain  it  because  it  cannot  be  ex- 
plained without  names;  besides,  the  names 
own  the  papers.  Everybody  understands  it ; 
nobody  minds  it.  Is  any  statute  here  at 
fault?  Will  any  legislation  cure  this?  If 
the  moral  sensibility  of  our  people  should 
become  tensified  by  twenty  per  cent  in 
twenty-four  hours,  twenty  per  cent  of  all  our 
iniquities  in  every  department  would  cease 
in  forty-eight  hours.  Government  is  carried 
on  by  the  lightning  of  personal  suggestion 
which  flashes  through  the  community  from 
day  to  day  and  from  moment  to  moment. 
Those  things  are  done  which  are  demanded 
or  are  tolerated  at  the  instant  they  are  done. 

I  read  in  a  newspaper  that  a  syndicate  has 
been  formed  to  light  the  city.  It  is  backed 
by  the  men  who  control  the  city  administra- 
117 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

tion,  and  they  are  now  blackmailing  the 
existing  company  to  its  ruin.  Can  I  escape 
the  knowledge  of  this  thing?  Alas,  too 
easily :  I  own  stock  in  it. 

At  first  we  think  the  legislature  makes  the 
laws,  then  we  see  it  is  done  by  a  cabal,  then 
by  people  behind  the  cabal,  finally  by  the 
million  bonds  of  popular  prejudice  which  tie 
each  man  up  with  the  times. 

Look  closely,  take  some  particular  man, 
and  consider  why  it  is  that  he  does  not  spend 
his  whole  time  in  fighting  for  virtue.  It 
will  turn  out,  that  in  some  form  or  other,  he 
is  a  beneficiary  of  these  evils,  and  has  not 
the  energy  to  fight  them.  One  man  depends 
upon  the  status  quo  for  his  living,  the  next 
is  held  by  affection  for  his  friends,  by  the 
ties  of  old  prejudice,  by  inertia,  by  hope- 
lessness. Which  of  them  is  the  more  deeply 
injured  victim  of  tyranny,  — the  active  self- 
seeker  or  the  listless  man,  the  Tammany  boy 
or  the  American  gentleman? 

Every  man  bears  a  direct  and  discoverable 
share  in  the  responsibility.  A  janitor  keeps 
his  place  through  Tammany  influence,  a 
young  lawyer  gets  business  by  keeping  his 
mouth  shut.  Follow  out  the  lines  leading 
from  any  man,  no  matter  how  obscure  he  is, 
and  they  will  lead  you  to  the  ante-chamber 
118 


PRINCIPLES 

where  gigantic  business  has  its  offices,  where 
the  highest  functionaries  of  commerce  and 
politics  meet.  The  business  world  is  all 
one  organization.  It  is  a  sort  of  secret 
society,  a  great  web.  No  matter  where  you 
touch  it,  the  same  spiders  come  out. 

The  boss  system,  then,  appears  as  the 
visible  part  of  all  the  private  selfishness  in 
America.  It  is  a  great  religion  of  self- 
interest,  with  its  hierarchy,  its  chapels,  its 
propaganda,  and  its  confessors  in  every  home. 
You  yourself  support  it.  I  saw  last  week,  at 
your  table,  a  magnate  whose  business  conduct 
you  deplore,  and  to-day  I  heard  a  young 
man  make  the  comment,  that  there  was  no 
use  fighting  the  current  so  long  as  social 
influence  could  be  bought.  Do  not  accuse 
Tammany  Hall ;  you  yourself  have  corrupted 
that  young  man.  So  long  as  you  think  you 
can  circumvent  the  laws  of  force,  you  will 
remain  a  pillar  in  the  temple  of  iniquity. 

But  look  closer  still  at  each  of  those  indi- 
viduals, and  see  just  what  it  is  he  is  giving 
as  the  purchase  money.  One  man  gives 
$25,000  to  pay  a  president's  private  debts, 
and  goes  as  minister  to  England;  another 
gives  merely  his  name  to  indorse  a  doubtful 
candidate  for  the  assembly,  and  receives 
prospective  good  will  from  the  organization. 
119 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

What  is  this  great  market  overt  where  every 
one  can  get  what  he  wants  ?  The  syndicate 
can  get  the  franchises,  and  the  aldermen 
the  cash.  No  one  is  too  small  to  be  served, 
or  so  great  as  to  require  nothing.  Upon 
what  principle  is  this  monstrous  bazaar, 
this  clearing-house  for  self-interest,  con- 
ducted ?  It  is  as  large  as  the  United  States  — 
the  transcontinental  railroads  use  it  —  and  so 
well  managed  that  I  can  get  my  friend  a  job 
as  the  secretary  of  a  reform  movement. 
What  is  it  that  makes  this  universal  shop 
run  so  smoothly?  It  is  hooked  together 
simply  on  business  principles.  The  price 
you  pay  is  always  the  rubbing  of  somebody 
the  right  way;  the  thing  you  get  is  advance- 
ment or  personal  comfort  of  some  sort.  It 
has  happened,  that  by  the  operation  of  com- 
mercial forces,  the  whole  of  America's 
seventy  million  people  have  been  polarized 
into  self-seekers;  and  our  total  condition  is 
visibly  Vanity  Fair.  You  can  actually  fol- 
low the  rays  of  power  from  the  individual  to 
the  boss.  All  the  evil  in  the  world  is  seen 
to  be  in  league.  Embezzlement  and  lazi- 
ness, selfish  ambition  and  prejudice,  cruelty 
and  timidity  here  openly  play  into  each 
other's  hands,  support  and  console  each 
other.  Nay,  every  atom  of  vice,  every  im- 
120 


PRINCIPLES 

pulse  of  malice  or  cupidity,  can  be  shown  up 
as  a  tendon  or  a  sinew  of  the  great  organiza- 
tion of  selfish  forces.  It  is  as  if  a  magic 
glass  had  been  superposed  upon  the  conti- 
nent, and,  looking  down  through  it,  upon 
the  motives  of  men,  all  complexity  vanished, 
and  we  saw  all  the  evil  forces  pulling  one 
way. 

The  same  thing  has  always  been  true  in 
every  society;  but  the  names,  powers,  super- 
stitions have  been  so  extremely  complicated 
that  no  one  could  follow  the  laws  of  inter- 
locking motive,  except  by  inference  and 
prophetic  insight.  Take  the  case  of  a  very 
selfish  man  fighting  his  way  up  through 
society  in  the  reign  of  Louis  XVIII.  He 
meets  a  Bourbon  influence,  an  ecclesiastical 
influence,  a  Napoleonic  influence,  a  republi- 
can influence.  He  grapples  with  every  man 
he  meets,  using  the  hooks  of  self-interest  in 
that  man.  The  forces  at  work  under  Louis 
XVIII.  were  as  simple  as  with  us.  Only 
the  nomenclature  is  different,  and  more  com- 
plex. It  is  easy  in  America  to  sec  the  work- 
ing of  one  man's  selfishness  upon  another's. 
Let  alone  the  market  overt,  it  is  easy  to 
trace  the  subtle  social  relations,  when  they 
are  for  the  bad.  It  was  easy  to  follow  the 
effect    of   your   conduct    in    asking  the  dis- 

121 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

honest  business  magnate  to  dinner,  because 
the  young  man  spoke  of  it.  He  was  shocked 
and  injured.  But  we  also  found  out  by  the 
episode  that  before  you  did  the  thing,  you 
were  really  a  factor  for  good  in  his  life, 
holding  up  his  conscience  and  his  ideals. 

The  inexpressible  subtlety  in  the  mecha- 
nism of  man  makes  the  transmission  of  the 
force  for  good  as  easy  as  that  of  the  force 
for  evil.  They  are  of  the  same  character, 
and  very  often  flow  through  the  same  chan- 
nels. There  is  no  more  mystery  in  the  one 
case  than   in  the  other. 

Consider  what  is  done  in  the  course  of 
any  practical  movement  for  reform.  A 
bad  bill  is  pending  at  Albany.  In  order 
to  beat  it,  a  party  of  men  whose  char- 
acters are  trusted,  get  on  a  train,  and  the 
whole  State  watches  them  proceed  to  Albany. 
This  is  often  enough  to  defeat  a  measure. 
The  good  their  pilgrimage  does,  is  done  then 
and  there  instantly,  by  example,  by  sugges- 
tion. If,  when  they  get  to  Albany,  they  sell 
out  their  cause,  the  harm  they  do  is  done 
then  and  there  by  example,  by  suggestion. 
They  make  some  concession  which  lessens 
friction  but  suggests  Tammany  Hall.  This 
is  the  only  part  of  the  transaction  that 
reaches  the  great  public.     Ask  the  laboring 


PRINCIPLES 

man  and  he  will  give  you  a  digest  of  the 
whole  episode  in  a  shrug.  If  a  reform  can- 
didate is  running  on  the  platform  "Thou 
shalt  not  steal,"  and  the  boss  desires  to  cor- 
rupt him,  the  boss  asks  him  to  drop  in  for  a 
chat.  If  he  goes,  every  one  hears  of  it  the 
next  day,  and  every  one  is  a  little  corrupted 
himself.  A  thousand  well-meaning  men  say 
he  did  right.  Had  he  resisted,  these  same 
men  would  have  cried  "Bravo!"  and  there- 
after taken  a  higher  view  of  human  nature. 
It  is  by  a  succession  of  such  minute  shocks 
of  good  or  bad  example  that  communities  are 
affected.  The  truth  seems  to  be  that  our 
lives  are  ruled  by  laws  of  influence  which 
are  in  themselves  exceedingly  direct.  But 
the  operation  of  them  is  concealed  from  us 
by  our  preoccupation  over  details. 

It  is  impossible  to  regard  these  matters  in 
too  simple  a  light.  Nothing  is  ever  in- 
volved except  the  contagious  impulse  that 
makes  one  man  yawn  when  he  sees  another 
man  yawn.  Both  the  good  and  the  evil  in 
the  world  run  upon  the  winds.  Moses' 
habit  of  falling  upon  his  face  before  the 
congregation,  and  calling  God  to  witness 
that  he  could  lead  them  no  longer,  was  not 
a  political  trick  done  to  frighten  the  people 
into  submission  by  the  threat  of  abandoning 
123 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

them.  It  was  a  sincere  act  of  devotion  ;  but 
it  was  also  the  most  powerful  form  of  appeal. 
He  did  the  act;  they  followed  in  it,  and  thus 
made  him  absolute.  Lincoln's  anecdotes 
and  fables  consisted  of  nothing  but  sugges- 
tion. They  were  one  source  of  his  power. 
The  first  thing  a  tyrant  does  is  to  suppress 
cartoons.  Here  we  have  something  that  is 
often  sheer  pantomime,  and  yet  it  is  one  of 
the  most  effective  vehicles  in  the  world.  It 
was  the  only  thing  Piatt  could  not  stand. 
Within  two  years  he  has  tried  to  stop  it  by 
legislation. 

If  you  are  to  reach  masses  of  people  in 
this  world,  you  must  do  it  by  a  sign  language. 
Whether  your  vehicle  be  commerce,  litera- 
ture, or  politics,  you  can  do  nothing  but 
raise  signals,  and  make  motions  to  the 
people.  In  literature  this  is  obvious.  The 
more  far-reaching  any  truth  is,  the  shorter 
grow  its  hieroglyphics.  The  great  truths 
can  only  be  given  in  hints,  phrases,  and 
parables.  They  lie  in  universal  experience, 
and  any  comment  belittles  them.  They  are 
like  the  magnetic  poles  that  can  only  be 
pointed  out  with  a  needle.  Take  any  pro- 
found saying  about  life,  and  see  if  it  does 
not  imply  short-hand,  a  sort  of  telegraphy 
as  the  ordinary  means  of  communication  be- 
124 


PRINCIPLES 

tvveen  men.  "He  that  loseth  his  life  shall 
save  it."  Here  we  have  a  poem,  a  system  of 
ethics  and  a  psychology.  Or  take  any  bit 
of  worldly  wisdom,  "  Money  talks."  Here  wc 
have  the  whole  philosophy  of  materialism. 
Does  any  one  imagine  that  political  bar- 
gains are  reduced  to  writing?  It  would  be 
injurious  to  the  conscience.  They  are  made 
by  the  merest  hints  on  all  sides.  Every  one 
is  left  free. 

The  extreme  case  of  the  power  of  sugges- 
tion is  seen  in  the  stock-market,  where  a 
rumor  that  Banker  A  has  dined  with  Rail- 
road President  B  drives  values  up  or  down. 
Cleveland's  Venezuela  message  makes  a 
panic.  The  different  parts  of  the  financial 
world  live,  from  day  to  day,  in  instantaneous 
and  throbbing  communication.  This  is  one 
side  of  the  popular  life.  Its  thermometer 
is  sensitive,  and  records  one  thousandth  of 
a  degree  as  readily  as  the  political  ther- 
mometer records  a  single  degree.  But  the 
principle  is  the  same.  All  the  people  run 
the  stock-market,  and  all  the  people  run 
politics.  There  has  never  been  any  diffi- 
culty in  reaching  the  whole  people  with 
ideas.  Even  a  private  man  can  do  it.  But 
he  must  act  them  out. 


125 


VI 

PRINCIPLES  {continued). 

Suppose  a  small  child  steals  jam  in  the 
pantry.  So  long  as  he  pretends  that  he  did 
not  do  it,  or  did  not  know  it  was  wrong,  he 
surfers  a  certain  oppression. 

You  can  explain  to  an  intelligent  child 
that  if  he  tells  the  whole  truth  about  the 
thing,  the  telling  will  cost  him  pain  and 
leave  him  happy.  But  you  cannot  save  him 
the  pain.  So  long  as  he  persists  in  lying, 
some  of  his  faculties  lie  under  an  inhibition; 
the  vital  energies  flow  past  them  instead  of 
through  them.  The  first  shock  of  a  through 
passage  gives  a  spasm  of  pain,  and  then  the 
child  is  happy.  It  is  one  of  the  facts  of  the 
world  that  moral  awakening  is  accompanied 
by  pain. 

The  quarrel  that  the  world  has  with  its 
agitators  is  that  they  do  really  agitate. 
People  express  this  by  saying  that  the  men 
are  dangerous  or  have  bad  taste.  The  epi- 
thets vary  with  the  age.  They  are  intended 
126 


PRINCIPLES 

to  excite  public  contempt,  and  they  embody 
the  aversions  of  society.  In  a  martial  age 
the  reformer  is  called  a  molly-coddle;  in  a 
commercial  age  an  incompetent,  a  disturber 
of  values ;  in  a  fanatical  age,  a  heretic.  If 
an  agitator  is  not  reviled,  he  is  a  quack. 

These  epithets  are  mere  figures  of  speech. 
What  they  really  express  is  suffering  caused 
by  the  workings  of  conscience.  And  so 
in  any.  educational  movement  that  runs 
across  the  country,  there  is  always  a  track 
of  pain  turning  to  happiness.  When  we 
get  in  the  path  of  one  of  these  things, 
we  find  that  the  division  between  con- 
tending ideas  passes  through  the  individual 
man.  It  does  not  fall  between  men.  The 
struggle  is  always  the  struggle  of  forces 
within  an  individual.  A  is  trying  to  con- 
vince B.  The  struggle  in  A's  mind  is  to 
make  the  matter  clear,  in  B's  mind  to  make 
the  opposite  clear.  In  the  course  of  time 
one  view  prevails ;  but  the  struggle  continues, 
for  B  occupies  A's  position  and  is  now  strug- 
gling to  convince  C.  It  is  in  this  way  that 
a  movement  runs  through  a  community. 
The  firing  line  passes  through  a  series  of  in- 
dividuals, and  as  they  succumb,  through  them 
to  the  next. 

If  you  take  any  particular  case  of  conflict, 
127 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

you  will  find  that  the  man  is  divided  be- 
tween two  courses,  one  of  which  is  dis- 
agreeable because  it  involves  effort  and 
sacrifice  and  offence.  The  other  is  agree- 
able because  it  involves  personal  ease  or 
personal  advancement.  The  two  motives  in 
man  result  from  the  structure  of  his  brain, 
whose  operations  we  are  obliged  to  accept : 
we  cannot  amend  them;  they  are  the  facts 
of  psychology. 

It  would  seem  as  if  the  brain  of  man  were 
so  constituted  that  at  the  moment  of  its 
full  operation  the  man  himself  disappears. 
His  consciousness  becomes  wholly  occupied 
with  impersonal  interests.  Thus,  in  the 
process  of  thought,  a  man  begins  to  see  his 
own  personal  interests  threatened.  If  he 
continues  to  think,  they  must  vanish.  This 
is  the  struggle  between  right  and  wrong.  It 
is  really  a  struggle  between  two  attitudes  of 
mind.  It  is  the  experience  we  suffer  when 
the  mind  is  passing  from  the  self-regardant 
to  the  non-self-regardant  attitude. 

Perhaps  the  discomfort  of  doing  one's  duty 
is  an  inseparable  incident  of  the  storage  of 
energy,  and  the  pleasure  of  neglecting  one's 
duty,  an  incident  of  the  leakage  of  energy. 
When  I  get  up  and  poke  the  fire,  because  I 
see  it  will  go  out  if  I  don't,  I  return  to  my 
128 


PRINCIPLES 

chair  a  more  energetic  being  than  I  was  the 
moment  before.  At  any  rate,  our  oscilla- 
tion between  two  states  of  consciousness  has 
preoccupied  mankind  from  the  earliest  times, 
and  has  given  rise  to  all  the  dualistic  phi- 
losophies. The  great  fact  as  to  the  reality 
of  the  struggle  is  proved  to  us,  not  merely 
by  our  own  consciousness,  but  because  we 
can  see  the  logical  results  of  it  everywhere 
in  society. 

A  community  is  a  collection  of  palpitating 
animals.  Each  of  us  is  one  of  them,  and 
each  of  us  receives  and  transmits  millions 
of  impressions  hourly.  We  get  heard.  We 
have  our  exact  weight  and  force.  There  is 
no  difficulty  about  our  power  of  intercourse. 
Indeed  it  is  the  thing  we  cannot  get  away 
from.  No  man  walks  by  himself.  Between 
his  feet  and  the  ground  are  invisible  pedals 
that  play  upon,  and  are  played  upon  by  other 
men.  You  cannot  live  or  move  except  by 
transmitting  influence.  The  whole  of  prac- 
tical life  is  made  up  of  contact  with  the  pas- 
sions of  others.  A  lawyer  or  a  broker  is 
like  an  engineer  who  sits  behind  his  ma- 
chine, managing  its  levers  and  its  stopcocks. 
A  trader,  a  writer,  or  a  philanthropist,  a 
laborer  or  a  clergyman,  does  nothing  but 
open  and  shut  valves  in  other  people.  There 
9  129 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

is  no  other  way  of  serving  your  fellows; 
there  is  no  other  way  of  earning  your  living 
or  of  wasting  your  substance. 

We  saw  that  in  politics  it  was  impossible 
to  draw  a  dividing  line  anywhere  in  that 
series  of  men  whose  joint  activity  and  in- 
activity held  up  what  we  call  the  evils  of 
politics.  Money  interest  shaded  off  into 
prejudice,  and  that  into  mistaken  loyalty, 
and  that  into  indifference.  The  striking 
truth  about  the  whole  series  was  that  it 
showed  different  shades  of  selfishness,  lack 
of  energy,  and  inability  to  use  the  mind 
accurately.  So  also  any  unselfish  or  accu- 
rate use  of  his  mind  by  the  laborer  or  by  the 
journalist  was,  as  we  saw,  apt  to  throw  him 
out  of  employment. 

In  politics  and  in  morals,  all  that  we  con- 
demn, turns  out  on  inspection  to  be  mere 
selfishness.  But  anything  in  the  world  that 
we  dislike,  turns  out,  on  inspection,  to  be 
self-regardant  effort  or  avoidance  of  effort. 
Bad  art  may  show  the  gross  selfishness  of  the 
pot-boiler,  or  the  refined  laziness  of  preju- 
dice, or  the  mere  weakness  that  was  unable 
to  see  the  world  for  itself,  and  has  been 
forced  to  see  it  with  some  one  else's  eyes. 
It  is  a  makeshift.  So  of  bad  carpentry  or 
bad  cooking.  There  is  no  such  special  prov- 
130 


PRINCIPLES 

incc  in  life  as  morality.  Each  man  regards 
that  thing  as  immoral  which  he  sees  to  be 
selfish.  A  proofreader  will  show  the  same 
indignation  over  a  careless  job,  that  a  musi- 
cian shows  over  a  weak  phrasing. 

The  unimaginable  subtlety  of  our  compre- 
hension enables  us  to  detect  selfishness  in 
arts  of  whose  methods  we  know  nothing; 
we  read  it  like  large  print.  To  speak  accu- 
rately, all  we  get  from  any  communication 
is  a  transcript,  an  image,  a  picture  of  the 
author's  thought,  the  jar  of  intellect  and 
character.  Is  it  supposed  that  communica- 
tion between  men  goes  forward  by  ratiocina- 
tion, or  that  education  is  a  thing  taken  in 
by  linear  measurement  ?  Thought  cannot 
creep,  but  only  fly.  It  proceeds  by  the  magic 
of  stimulation.  A  good  judge  can  read  a 
good  brief  almost  as  fast  as  he  can  turn  the 
pages.  If  a  thing  is  well  put,  it  is  almost 
our  own  before  it  is  said.  Ideas  pass  into 
us  so  quickly  that  Plato  thought  we  knew 
them  in  a  former  existence.  This  is  due  to 
the  subtlety  of  our  apprehension.  We  are 
not  satisfied  except  by  an  appeal  so  refined 
that  our  only  sensation  is  one  of  being  made 
more  alive.  "  Rien  ne  me  choque "  was 
Chopin's  highest  praise.  What  wonder, 
then,  that  we  resent  the  self-sufficiency  of 
131 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

any  inferior  mind?     The  whole  of  life  is  no 
more  than  a  series  of  pulsations,  and  all  the 
books  and  Bibles,  sign-boards,  music-boxes, 
and   telegraph  wires  are  the   machinery  by 
which  in  one  way  or   another  the   mind  of: 
man  touches  the  mind  of  man.     The  world 
has  been  going  on  for  so  long  that  we  have 
many  such  devices,  and  out  of  the  millions 
that  have  been  made,  all  but  the  very  best  get 
discarded  as  old  lumber.     These  things  are 
the  language  of  the  unselfish  force  upon  the 
globe.     It  is  much  nearer  truth  to  think  of 
them   as  a  single  influence   than   as  multi- 
farious.    Their   origin   and  tendency,  their 
practical   utility,    the   veneration    in  which 
they  are  held,  bind  them  together  and  make 
them  one.     For  the  world  values   the   seer 
above   all   men,    and   has   always   done   so. 
Nay,  it  values  all  men  in  proportion  as  they 
partake  of  the  character  of  seers.     The  Elgin 
Marbles  and  a  decision  of  John  Marshall  are 
valued  for  the  same  reason.     What  we  feel 
in  them  is  a  painstaking  submission  to  facts 
beyond   the  author's   control,  and   to    ideas 
imposed     upon    him    by    his    vision.       So 
with    Beethoven's  Symphonies,  with  Adam 
Smith's  "Wealth   of   Nations,"  — with  any 
conceivable  output  of   the  human   mind   of 
which  you  approve.     You  love  them  because 
132 


PRINCIPLES 

you  say,  "  These  things  were  not  made,  they 
were  seen." 

Thus  the  forces  of  an  unselfish  sort  upon 
the  globe  are  cumulative.  The  dead  heroes 
fight  on  forever,  and  the  dead  mathemati- 
cians expound  forever.  It  is  true  that  the 
organization  of  the  selfish  forces  is  over- 
whelmingly visible,  and  that  of  the  unselfish 
ones  invisible.  Napoleon  is  seen  by  his 
contemporaries;  Spinoza  is  not  seen.  The 
reason  is  simple.  The  man  who  wants 
something  must  have  an  office  address.  But 
the  man  who  wants  nothing  for  himself,  but 
spends  his  whole  time  in  so  using  his  mind 
that  he  himself  disappears,  lives  only  as  an 
influence  in  the  minds  of  others.  He  is  a 
song,  a  theory,  a  proposition  in  algebra. 
These  two  conflicting  forms  of  force  are  then 
flashed  up  and  down,  forward  and  back 
ceaselessly,  through  and  across  every  social 
meeting,  through  and  across  society.  The 
novelists  and  playwrights  deal  with  this 
instantaneous  interplay  of  motive;  and  the 
time-honored  analysis  of  self  for  self  on  the 
villain's  side,  and  sacrifice  for  principle  on 
the  hero's  side  is  a  true  thing.  It  is  a  fair 
abstract  of  the  world. 

You  can  illustrate  in  an  instant  the  imme- 
diacy of  these  two  hierarchies  of  power  under 
*33 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

which  we  live  and  from  which  we  cannot 
escape.  The  selfish  ones  need  not  be  named ; 
they  oppress  us.  But  the  unselfish  ones  are 
equally  near.  If  you  take  any  bit  of  poetry 
or  speech  or  writing  that  you  consider  great, 
and  examine  it,  you  will  find  that  it  illus- 
trates the  logical  coherence  of  all  the  ideas 
and  feelings  that  make  you  happy;  it  is  a 
digest  of  a  law  of  influence.  Or  conversely, 
if  you  set  about  to  illustrate  some  experi- 
ence, and  if  you  can  get  it  profoundly  and 
accurately  stated  as  what  you  believe  to  be 
the  bottom  truth,  it  will  turn  under  your 
hands  into  something  familiar.  If  you  are 
successful,  it  will  be  a  kind  of  poetry. 


i34 


VII 

CONCLUSION 

THERE  is  force  enough  in  ordinary  sunshine 
to  turn  all  the  mills  in  the  world;  and  there 
is  beneficent  energy  enough  in  any  com- 
munity to  make  the  people  perfectly  happy. 
But  it  is  cramped  and  deflected,  poisoned 
by  misuse,  and  turned  to  hateful  ends.  The 
question  is  how  to  liberate  energy. 

People  are  fond  of  thinking  the  millennium 
is  impossible;  but  so  long  as  happiness  is 
dependent  on  a  right  use  of  the  faculties, 
there  is  no  reason  why  the  millennium  should 
not  be  reached,  and  that  soon  or  unexpect- 
edly. We  all  know  individuals  so  harmoni- 
ously framed  that  we  say,  "  If  theirs  were 
the  common  temper  of  mankind,  we  should 
be  happy."  None  of  the  externals  of  life, 
about  which  there  is  so  much  buffeting,  con- 
trol the  question.  Happiness  is  in  a  nut- 
shell. Anybody  can  have  it.  You  are 
happy  if  you  get  out  of  bed  on  the  right  side. 
I  can  never  stop  wondering  at  the  awful 
i3S 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

simplicity  of  the  principle  on  which  mankind 
is  constructed.  Little  Alice  in  the  Looking- 
Glass  could  not  reach  the  porch  till  she 
turned  her  back  on  it  and  walked  straight 
into  the  door.  Renounce  the  search  for 
happiness  and  you  find  the  substance.  There 
is  nothing  else  in  the  law  and  the  prophets. 

We  see  most  men  like  tee-totums  spinning 
to  the  left  and  leading  a  dismal  life.  How 
shall  we  get  their  motive  power  to  spin  them 
to  the  right,  and  make  them  happy?  The 
practical  question  is :  how  to  use  the  power 
of  sunlight  to  turn  our  mills.  How  can  we 
hold  up  a  prism  to  the  times  that  shall  dis- 
integrate these  rays  of  complex  force,  and 
then  adjust  a  lens  that  shall  focus  the  powers 
of  good  and  make  them  turn  the  wheels  of 
society  ?  The  elements  are  before  us,  cease- 
lessly in  motion.  irdvra  pel.  The  most 
adamantine  institutions  are  cloud  palaces. 
There  is  no  stability  anywhere ;  and  if  you 
have  a  steady  eye  you  will  see  that  the  whole 
fabric  is  in  a  flux.  Nor  are  the  changes 
arbitrary.  The  formations  and  re-forma- 
tions are  governed  by  laws  as  certain  as 
those  of  astronomy.  Study  the  changes  and 
you  will  find  the  laws.  Subserve  the  laws 
and  you  can  affect  the  formations.  Julius 
Caesar  did  no  more. 

136 


CONCLUSION 

The  strands  of  prejudice  and  passion  that 
bind  people  together  pulsate  with  life.  All 
these  fellow-citizens  are  human  beings,  and 
there  is  no  one  of  them  whom  we  cannot 
understand,  reach,  influence.  The  ordinary 
modes  of  intercourse  are  at  hand.  Chief 
among  them  you  find  the  great  machinery  of 
government.  It  dwarfs  every  other  agency, 
whether  for  good  or  ill.  In  America  this 
machinery  was  designed  to  be  at  the  service 
of  anybody.  It  is  an  advertising  agency  for 
ideas,  and  it  is  very  much  more  than  this; 
since  the  fact  that  a  man  is  to  vote  forces 
him  to  think.  You  may  preach  to  a  congre- 
gation by  the  year  and  not  affect  its  thought 
because  it  is  not  called  upon  for  definite 
action.  But  throw  your  subject  into  a  cam- 
paign and  it  becomes  a  challenge.  You  can 
get  assent  to  almost  any  proposition  so  long 
as  you  are  not  going  to  do  anything  about  it. 
And  on  the  other  hand,  no  amount  of  verbal 
proof  will  justify  a  new  thought  until  it  has 
been  put  in  practice. 

Alas  for  ink  and  paper !  There  is  in  all 
speech  and  writing  a  conventional  presump- 
tion that  human  beings  shall  be  logical,  or 
fixed  quantities,  or  at  least  coherent  crea- 
tures. For  the  purposes  of  an  essay  or  a 
speech,  you  prove  your  case,  and  carry  weight 
i37 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

accordingly.      If   you   are   very  cogent   and 
conclusive,    why,    you    win.      Hurrah !    the 
world  is  saved.     But  in  real  life  there  are  no 
fixed  quantities;  all  the  terms  are  variables. 
For  example,  everybody  understands  what 
is   meant    by   the    "Moral    Law."      People 
differ  only  as  to  the  application  of  that  law. 
Not  long  ago  I  heard  a  sermon  on  this  law, 
in  which  great  stress  was  laid  on  the  fact  that 
it  was  a  discovered  law  whereby  the  truth 
prevailed.     Any  truce  with  evil  meant  defeat 
for  the   cause  of    righteousness.     This  was 
the  law  of  God,  tested  by  experience,  and  in 
constant  operation  like  the  law  of  gravity,  a 
thing  you  could  not  escape.     The  preacher 
pictured  the  solitary  struggle  of  the   great 
man  seeking  truth,  his  proclamation  of  the 
truth,  the  refusal  of  the  world  to  receive  it, 
and    the    prophet's    isolation    and    apparent 
failure.     Nevertheless  what  the  prophet  said 
had   always   the   same   content.     It  was  an 
appeal  to  the  instincts  of  man  upon  the  ques- 
tion of  right  and  wrong,  and  in  the  end  it 
was  accepted. 

Now  the  man  who  made  this  exposition, 
and  it  was  admirable,  is  in  regard  to  politics 
a  believer  in  compromise.  I  think  I  have 
never  known  him  support  the  idealist  cause 
in  a  campaign ;  and  upon  most  occasions  of 
138 


CONCLUSION 

crisis  he  is  found  heartily  throwing  stones 
at  the  crusaders. 

What  words  in  any  language  can  make 
this  man  understand  that  his  law —  which  he 
really  does  profoundly  understand  as  a  law 
—  applies  to  reform  movements?  Why,  no 
words  will  do  it,  only  example.  New  state- 
ments about  morality,  however  eloquent,  add 
nothing  to  our  knowledge.  Everything  is 
known  about  the  moral  law,  except  how 
you  yourself  will  act  under  given  circum- 
stances. You  have  nothing  but  example  to 
contribute. 

People  interrogate  force.  They  arc  un- 
convinced, and  are  carried,  still  protesting, 
through  the  air  and  deposited  in  a  new  place. 
And  then,  thereafter,  they  agree  with  you 
about  the  whole  matter.  Mere  intellec- 
tual assent  to  your  proposition  is,  even  when 
you  can  get  it,  worth  nothing.  Your  object 
is  not  to  confute,  but  to  stimulate.  What 
you  really  want  is  that  every  man  you  meet 
shall  drop  his  business  and  devote  his  entire 
life  and  energy  to  your  cause.  You  will 
accept  nothing  less  than  this.  Is  it  not  clear 
that  people  are  not  moved  by  logic?  Your 
conduct  must  ultimately  square  with  reason 
and  be  justified  by  the  laws  of  the  universe 
and  the  constitution  of  other  people's  minds ; 
i39 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

but  you  must  value  only  that  approval  which 
comes  from  the  deeper  fibres  in  men.  You 
need  not  be  concerned  about  the  bickerings 
of  contemporary  misunderstanding.  Leave 
these  for  the  historical  society.  Act  first 
—  explain  afterwards.  That  is  the  way  to 
get  heard.  Must  you  show  your  passport 
and  certificate  of  birth  and  legitimacy  to 
every  editor  and  every  lackey  ?  They  '11  find 
out  who  you  are  by  and  by.  It  is  easier  to 
knock  a  man  down  than  to  say  why  you  do 
it.  The  act  is  sometimes  needed,  and  wis- 
dom then  approves  it  after  the  event.  Peo- 
ple who  love  soft  methods  and  hate  iniquity 
forget  this, — that  reform  consists  in  taking 
a  bone  from  a  dog.  Philosophy  will  not 
do  it. 

Such  are  the  practical  dictates  of  agitation. 
Their  justification  lies  always  with  events. 
It  may  be  that  you  must  wait  seven  centuries 
for  an  audience,  or  it  may  be  that  in  two 
years  your  voice  will  be  heeded.  If  you  are 
really  a  forerunner  of  better  times,  the  times 
will  appear  and  explain  you.  It  will  then 
turn  out  that  your  movement  was  the  key- 
note of  the  national  life.  You  really  differed 
from  your  neighbors  only  in  this,  —  that 
your  mind  had  gone  faster  than  theirs  along 
the  road  all  were  travelling. 
140 


CONCLUSION 

We  are  all  slaves  of  the  age;  we  can  only 
see  such  principles  as  society  reveals.  The 
philosophy  of  other  ages  does  us  little  good. 
We  repeat  the  old  formulas  and  cry  up  the 
prophets;  but  we  see  no  connection  between 
the  truth  we  know  so  well  in  print  and  its 
counterpart  in  real  life.  The  moral  com- 
monplaces, as,  for  instance,  "  Honesty  is  the 
best  policy,"  "A  single  just  man  can  influ- 
ence an  entire  community,"  "  Never  compro- 
mise a  principle,"  are  social  truths.  They 
are  always  true,  but  they  are  only  obviously 
true  in  very  virtuous  communities.  In  a 
vile  community  the  influence  of  a  just  man 
is  potent  but  not  visible.  In  a  perfectly 
virtuous  era  it  is  clear  that  a  cheat  could  not 
drive  a  fraudulent  trade. 

A  seer  is  a  man  with  such  sharp  eyes  for 
cause  and  effect  that  he  sees  social  truth, 
even  under  unfavorable  conditions.  And 
yet  even  the  seers  generally  had  auspicious 
weather,  —  that  is  to  say,  storms  of  moral 
passion.  The  whole  race  of  Jews  lived  in 
fervent  exaltation  for  generations,  and  re- 
vealed to  their  sharp-sighted  prophets  deep 
glimpses  of  social  truth.  Hence  the  Bible. 
"A  prophet  is  not  without  honor  save  in 
his  own  country."  What  happy  precision! 
What  sound  generalization  !  But  every  town- 
141 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

ship  in  Israel  had  its  prophet,  and  the  truth 
was  a  commonplace. 

All  the  world's  moral  wisdom  would  turn 
into  literal  truth  upon  the    regeneration   of 
society.       It   tends   to   become    obvious    in 
regenerative  eras.     In  dark  ages  it  becomes 
paradox.       Standards    are    multiplied,     and 
makeshift  theories  come  in,  —  one  rule  for 
social  conduct,  another  for  business,  another 
for  politics.      Expedient  supplants  principle. 
Indeed  you  may  gauge  the  degradation  of  an 
age  by  the  multiplicity  of  its  standards.     It 
is  the  same  with  the  fine  arts.     To  the  men 
that    made    the    statues    and    the   pictures, 
these  things  were   the  shortest   symbols  of 
truth,  and  required  no  explanation.     In  the 
dark  ages  that  followed  they  became  a  mys- 
tery and  a  paradox.      But  the  traditions  and 
objects  survived  and  had  to  be  accounted  for. 
An  age  that  cannot  produce  them  requires  a 
philosophy  of  aesthetics.     Thus  a  thousand 
reasons  are  given  to  explain  their  existence, 
and  finally  it  is  agreed  that  they  are  some- 
thing  superfluous   and  fictitious, — conven- 
tional   lies,    like   poetry,    like    loving   your 
neighbor. 

Nothing  but  a  general  increase  of  interest 
in  the  aspect  of  common  things  would  ex- 
plain to  us  the  great  masters.     A  revival  of 
142 


CONCLUSION 

interest  in  the  way  the  world  looks  is  the 
precursor  of  painting:  the  perceptions  of 
every  one  are  quickening.  And  so  we  may 
be  sure  that  we  are  upon  the  edge  of  a 
better  era  when  the  old  moral  commonplaces 
begin  to  glow  like  jewels  and  the  stones  to 
testify. 

You  cannot  expect  any  one  but  a  scientist 
to  be  startled  at  the  movement  of  a  glacier. 
But  if  you  distribute  a  few  micrometric  in- 
struments upon  that  gloomy  ice-field,  the 
American  civic  consciousness,  and  if  you 
take  observations  not  oftener  than  once  in 
three  years,  you  will  be  startled.  The  direc- 
tion of  the  general  movement  is  absolutely 
right.  But  it  all  moves  together.  Special 
signs  of  progress  imply  general  progress, 
and  hence  comes  the  extraordinary  and  sci- 
entific interest  in  the  awakening  of  this  com- 
munity. It  is  like  a  man  lapsed  into  the 
deepest  coma  who  is  beginning  to  stir. 
Watch  him,  take  his  pulse,  surround  him 
with  every  apparatus  of  experimental  physi- 
ology, and  you  will  find  the  laws  of  health, 
the  norm  of  progress. 

Art  and  literature,  and  that  moral  atmos- 
phere which  makes  a  society  worth  moving 
in,  lie  on  the  other  side  of  the  great  reac- 
tion, the  spiritual  revival  which  we  see 
i43 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

now   faintly  beginning;   and    it   is   because 
these  things  can  be  got  at  only  by  stimu- 
lating  American    character   that    these   re- 
form   movements    are   of    value.      Here   at 
least   the  circulation  throbs.     Political  re- 
form—  that    is   to   say,   a  political    life    in 
which  men  who  are  personally  honest  pre- 
dominate,   a   politics    run   by    ideas  —  will 
come  in  as  fast  as  the  public  develops  ideas, 
and  not  before.     But  an  idea  is  something 
very  different  from  what  you  who  read  this 
think  it  is.     An  idea  is  a  thing  that  governs 
your   conduct   all  the  time.     For  instance, 
you  assent   to  the  notion  of  independence 
in  politics;   you  understand   the   lost-cause 
theory,    but    you    won't    vote    the    ticket. 
Why?     You  don't  want  to  get  out  of  your 
class.     The  relations  between    thought  and 
action  in  you  are  not  normal.     Half  of  your 
brain  has  never  functioned,  and  the  paralysis 
shows  in  your  politics.     You  have  no  idea. 
It  is  not  this  sort  of  idea  that  expels  rascals 
or  makes  books  or  music.     What  passes  for 
political  thought  in  your  vocabulary  is  like 
the   phantasma  in  the  brain  of   the    Indian 
priest  who  is  buried  with  the  corn  growing 
above  him.     The  average  educated  man  in 
America  has   about  as  much   knowledge  of 
what  a  political  idea   is  as   he   has  of  the 
144 


CONCLUSION 

principles  of  counterpoint.  Each  is  a  thing 
used  in  politics  or  music  which  those  fellows 
who  practise  politics  or  music  manipulate 
somehow.  Show  him  one  and  he  will  deny 
that  it  is  politics  at  all.  It  must  be  corrupt 
or  he  will  not  recognize  it.  He  has  only 
seen  dried  figs.  He  has  only  thought  dried 
thoughts.  A  live  thought  or  a  real  idea  is 
against  the  rules  of  his  mind. 

Imagine  a  tea-party  of  pre-Raphaelites 
discussing  Dante;  they  dote  on  his  style, 
his  passion,  his  force,  his  quality.  In  walks 
Dante,  grim,  remorseless,  harsh,  powerful. 
The  man  represents  everything  they  hate. 
He  is  a  horror  and  an  outrage.  The  whole 
region  of  literature  that  these  men  live  in 
is  not  more  fictitious  than  the  region  of 
political  thought  in  which  the  effete  Amer- 
ican —  I  mean  your  banker,  your  college 
president,  your  writer  of  editorial  leaders  — 
lives.  Exclude  for  the  moment  those  who 
are  financially  corrupt  and  consider  only  the 
men  of  intellect,  and  in  all  that  concerns 
politics  they  are  as  removed  from  real  ideas 
as  Rossetti  was  removed  from  the  real  Dante. 

Imagine  a  company  of  people  on  a  voyage. 
They  play  whist  with  one  another  for  dimes, 
and  they  spend  all  their  money  on  the  stew- 
ard and  continue  to  play  with  counters,  and 

10  145 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

the  ship  goes  to  wreck,  and  they  sit  on  the 
beach  and  continue  to  play  with  pebbles. 
That  is  American  politics.  The  whole 
thing  is  one  gigantic  sham,  one  transcendent 
fraud. 

It  makes  no  difference  which  man  is  made 
president;  it  makes  no  difference  which  is 
governor.  There  is  no  choice  between 
McKinley  and  Bryan,  between  Republican- 
ism and  Democracy.  There  is  no  difference 
between  them.  They  are  one  thing.  They 
both  and  all  of  them  are  part  of  the  machinery 
by  which  the  government  of  a  most  dishonest 
nation  is  carried  on,  for  the  financial  benefit 
of  certain  parties,  —  certain  thousands  of 
men  who  have  bank  accounts  and  eat  and 
drink  and  bring  up  their  families  on  the 
proceeds  of  this  complicated  swindle. 

There  is  no  reality  in  a  single  phrase 
uttered  in  politics,  no  meaning  in  one  single 
word  of  any  of  it.  There  is  no  man  in  public 
life  who  stands  for  anything.  They  are 
shadows ;  they  are  phantasmagoria.  At  best 
they  cater  to  the  better  elements ;  at  worst 
they  frankly  subserve  the  worst.  There  is 
no  one  who  stands  for  his  own  ideas  himself, 
by  himself,  a  man.  If  American  politics 
does  not  look  to  you  like  a  joke,  a  tragic 
dance;  if  you  have  enough  blindness  left  in 
146 


CONCLUSION 

you,  on  any  plea,  on  any  excuse,  to  vote  for 
the  Democratic  party  or  the  Republican 
party  (for  at  present  machine  and  party  arc 
one),  or  for  any  candidate  who  does  not  stand 
for  a  new  era,  — then  you  yourself  pass  into 
the  slide  of  the  magic-lantern ;  you  are  an 
exhibit,  a  quaint  product,  a  curiosity  of  the 
American  soil.  You  arc  part  of  the  problem, 
and  you  must  be  educated  and  drawn  for- 
ward, towards  real  life.  This  process  is 
going  on.  As  the  community  returns  to 
life,  it  sees  the  natural  world  for  a  moment 
and  then  forgets  it.  The  blood  flushes  the 
brain  and  then  recedes  You  yourself  voted 
once  against  both  parties,  when  you  thought 
you  could  win,  and  when  you  were  excited. 
You  quoted  Isaiah  and  I  know  not  what 
poetry,  and  were  out  and  out  committed  to 
principle;  but  to-day  you  are  cold  and  hope- 
less. At  present,  hope  is  a  mystery  to  you. 
Nevertheless  the  utility  of  those  early  reform 
movements  survives.  They  heated  the  imag- 
ination of  the  people  till  the  people  had  a 
momentary  vision  of  truths  which  not  all  of 
them  forgot ;  and  so  each  year  the  tempera- 
ture has  been  higher,  the  mind  of  the  com- 
munity clearer. 

We  must  not  regard  those  broken  reeds, 
the  renegade  leaders  of  reform  movements, 
i47 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

as  villains;  though  the  mere  record  of  their 
words  and  conduct  might  prove  them  such. 
They  have  been  men  emerging  from  a  mist. 
They  see  clearly  for  a  moment,  and  then 
clouds  sweep  before  them.  Vanity,  selfish- 
ness, ambition,  tradition,  habit,  intervene 
like  a  fog.  They  have  been  betrayed,  too, 
by  the  fickle  public,  that  would  not  stand  by 
them  when  in  trouble.  In  the  recapture  of 
any  institution  by  the  forces  of  honesty  there 
are  trenches  that  get  filled  by  slaughtered 
honor. 

This  whole  revolution  means  the  invasion 
of  politics  by  new  men.  At  first  they  are 
tyros,  unstable,  untried,  well-meaning  fel- 
lows. Half  of  them  crack  in  the  baking. 
But  there  are  more  coming,  and  the  fibre  is 
growing  tougher  and  the  eyes  clearer;  soon 
we  shall  have  men.  A  great  passion  is  soon 
to  replace  the  feeble  conscientious  motive 
that  has  hitherto  brought  the  new  men  for- 
ward :  ambition,  —  the  ambition  to  stand  for 
ideas,  for  ideas  only,  and  to  get  heard.  We 
have  almost  forgotten  that  public  life  is  the 
natural  ambition  of  every  young  man.  Con- 
ditions have  made  it  contemptible.  But 
these  struggles  signify  that  a  change  in 
those  conditions  has  already  begun.  Your 
work  and  mine  may  be  summed  up  in  one 
148 


CONCLUSION 

word.  Make  it  possible  for  a  young  man  to 
go  into  public  life  untarnished,  and  as  an 
enemy  to  every  extant  evil.  You  must  have 
men  who  will  not  go  except  on  these  terms. 
The  times  herald  such  men.  They  will 
appear.     We  must  prepare  for  them. 

The  reason  for  the  slow  progress  of  the 
world  seems  to  lie  in  a  single  fact.  Every 
man  is  born  under  the  yoke,  and  grows  up 
beneath  the  oppressions  of  his  age.  He  can 
only  get  a  vision  of  the  unselfish  forces  in 
the  world  by  appealing  to  them,  and  every 
appeal  is  a  call  to  arms.  If  he  fights  he 
must  fight,  not  one  man,  but  a  conspiracy. 
He  is  always  at  war  with  a  civilization.  On 
his  side  is  proverbial  philosophy,  a  galaxy 
of  invisible  saints  and  sages,  and  the  half- 
developed  consciousness  and  professions  of 
everybody.  Against  him  is  the  world,  and 
every  selfish  passion  in  his  own  heart.  The 
instant  he  declares  war,  every  inducement  is 
offered  to  make  him  stop.  "Toil,  envy, 
want,  the  patron,  and  the  jail "  intervene. 
The  instant  he  stops  fighting  he  is  allied 
with  the  enemy:  he  is  bought  up  by  preju- 
dice or  by  fatigue.  He  begins  to  realize 
the  importance  of  particular  visible  institu- 
tions, as  if  their  sole  value  did  not  come 
149 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

from  the  fraction  of  unselfishness  they  repre- 
sent. He  rushes  headlong  into  trade,  and 
thenceforth  can  see  his  country  only  as  a 
series  of  trade  interests.  He  gets  into  some 
church  and  begins  to  value  its  organization, 
or  into  some  party  and  begins  to  value  its 
past,  or  into  some  club  and  begins  to  value 
his  friends'  feelings.  The  consequence  is 
that  you  may  search  Christendom  and  hardly 
find  a  man  who  is  free.  The  advance  of  the 
world,  like  the  improvement  of  our  local 
politics,  has  always  been  the  work  of  young 
men.  It  is  done  by  men  before  their  minds 
have  been  worn  into  ruts  by  particular  busi- 
nesses, or  their  sight  shortened  by  the  study 
of  near  things.  What  we  love  in  the  young 
is  not  their  youth,  but  their  force.  The 
energy  that  runs  through  them  makes  them 
sensitive.  They  feel  the  importance  of 
remote  things,  and  infer  the  relations  of  the 
present  to  the  future  more  truly  than  their 
elders.  They  are  touched  by  hints.  The 
direct  language  of  humanity  is  plain  and 
native  to  them.  The  invisible  waves  of 
force  which  do  as  a  matter  of  fact  rule  the 
world,  using  its  fictions  and  its  phrases  as 
mere  transmitting-plates,  strike  keenly  upon 
the  heart  of  the  youth,  and  the  vibrations 
of  instinctive  passion  that  shake  his  frame 
*5° 


CONCLUSION 

are  the  response  of  a  strong  creature  to  the 
laws  of  its  universe.  This  unlearned  knowl- 
edge of  good  and  evil  is  like  the  response  of 
the  eyes  to  light  or  of  the  tongue  to  the 
taste  of  a  fruit.  It  was  not  indoctrinated; 
it  is  a  reaction  to  a  stimulus. 

So  long  as  the  world  shall  last,  men  will 
be  writing  books  in  order  to  explain  and 
justify  the  instincts;  inventing  theologies 
and  ethical  codes,  and  projecting  political 
programs  to  advance  and  confirm  them. 

If  you  take  up  some  particular  matter 
and  begin  to  trace  out  its  consequences 
upon  mankind,  you  find  yourself  forced 
boldly  to  embrace  the  sum  of  all  human 
destiny.  We  cannot  follow  out  this  course 
in  detail.  We  see  only  tendency;  we  see 
only  influence.  Enlarge  our  horizon  as  we 
will,  we  cannot  live  out  the  lives  of  all 
future  generations,  and  thus  furnish  an 
answer  to  the  first  caviller  who  interrupts 
our  argument  with  a  "cui  bono."  The 
generous  impulses  of  youth  represent  a 
vision  of  consequences.  They  take  in  more 
of  the  future  at  one  glance  than  a  philosopher 
can  state  in  a  year. 

Certainly,  so  far  as  we  can  follow  out  the 
threads  of  influence,  the  lines  seem  to  con- 
verge. They  make  a  figure  and  point  to  a 
*5* 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

conclusion  exactly  upon  that  spot  in  the  fir- 
mament where  instinct  would  place  it.  If 
philosophy  gives  us  a  diagram,  the  rest  of 
life  fills  it  up,  and  embellishes  it  with  infi- 
nite illustration.  The  proofs  multiply,  and 
are  hurled  in  upon  us  from  all  quarters  of 
life  and  all  provinces  of  endeavor.  The 
anecdotes  and  fables  of  the  world,  its  drama, 
its  poetry  and  fiction,  its  religion  and  piety, 
its  domestic  teaching  and  its  monuments 
support  this  instinct,  and  describe  the  same 
figure.  Further  still,  there  is  not  a  man 
who  does  not  reveal  it  in  his  soul's  anatomy: 
so  much  so  that  upon  every  occasion  except 
where  his  interests  are  touched,  he  is  for 
virtue,  and  even  where  they  are  touched,  it 
is  only  a  question  of  a  few  degrees  more  heat 
to  dissolve  the  habits  and  prejudices  of  a 
lifetime,  and  make  him  take  off  his  coat  and 
go  into  a  war  or  a  political  campaign. 

A  single  man,  as  we  see  him  in  one  of  the 
great  modern  civilizations,  looks  like  a  bit 
of  machinery,  a  cog  or  a  crank  or  an  air- 
brake. The  business  man  is  especially  me- 
chanical, his  functions  are  so  accurate,  so 
delimited  and  specialized.  And  yet  any 
theory  that  dwells  upon  these  limitations  is 
put  to  shame  in  five  minutes,  for  the  crea- 
ture eats  and  sheds  tears  before  your  eyes. 
*52 


CONCLUSION 

All  of  the  reasons  for  not  doing  some  par- 
ticular act  that  you  think  wise  to  be  done, 
turn  out  to  be  founded  on  the  idea  that  this 
man  is  a  driving-wheel,  and  nothing  but  a 
driving-wheel.  You  cannot  change  him, 
they  say,  you  must  take  him  as  he  is.  I  have 
never  heard  any  argument  given  against  the 
wisdom  of  righteousness,  except  the  exist- 
ence of  evil.  "  It  exists,  therefore  subserve 
it."  Is  it  not  clear  that  evil  exists  only  be- 
cause people  subserve  it?  It  has  no  fixity. 
Withdraw  your  support  and  it  begins  to 
perish.  One  man  says,  "  Oh,  let  the  world  go. 
All  the  wickedness  and  unhappiness  in  it  are 
inevitable."  Another  says,  "  Some  little  con- 
cession to  present  conditions  must  be  made." 
Nothing  can  be  said  to  justify  the  second 
man  that  is  not  moral  support  to  the  first. 
Your  concession  is  always  the  acknowledg- 
ment of  somebody's  weakness.  Now  you 
may  make  allowances  for  a  man  who  has 
not  come  up  to  the  mark;  but  if  you 
make  allowances  for  him  beforehand,  and 
assume  that  he  is  not  going  to  do  right, 
you  corrupt  him.  If  these  things  are  true, 
then  we  are  absolved  from  all  complicity 
with  vice.  We  need  never  take  a  course 
that  requires  to  be  explained.  We  thus  get 
rid  of  a  great  oppression  and  can  breathe 
T53 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

freely.  In  the  language  of  the  old  piety, 
Christian's  pack  falls  from  his  back.  That 
pack  has,  in  all  ages,  been  a  perversion  of 
the  conscience,  a  mistake  as  to  the  size  of 
the  universe. 

We  have  seen  all  these  ranks  and  armies 
of  humanity  pass  in  review  before  us,  each 
man  with  his  eyes  fixed  in  mesmeric  inten- 
sity upon  some  set  of  opinions,  until  he 
grew  to  be  the  thing  he  looked  on.  These 
opinions  of  his  are  all  we  know  of  him. 
They  are  not  our  own  opinions.  They  often 
appear  to  us  misguided  and  illusory;  yet 
there  is  always  to  be  found  in  them  the  light 
of  some  benevolence.  They  are  like  broken 
mirrors  and  give  back  fractions  of  a  larger 
idea.  The  hope  and  courage  in  each  of 
these  men  bless  and  advance  the  world ;  but 
not  in  the  way  that  the  men  themselves 
expect.  They  seem  all  to  be  bent  over  a 
game  of  chess,  where  every  move  has  its 
real  significance  upon  another  board  which 
they  do  not  see.  Each  man  seems  to  be 
following  some  will-o'-the-wisp  across  a 
landscape  at  night.  No  cannon  can  waken 
these  insensate  sleepers.  And  yet  they  are 
tracing  out  patterns  and  geometrical  dia- 
grams upon  the  sward ;  they  are  weaving  a 
magical  dance  that,  for  all  its  intricacy,  has 
T54 


CONCLUSION 

a  planetary  rhythm,  and  the  sober  motion 
of  a  pendulum.  Each  individual  in  this 
unthinkable  host  gives  an  instance  of  the 
same  fatality  ;  first,  that  he  becomes  the 
thing  he  looks  on,  and  second,  that  he 
accomplishes  something  that  he  does  not 
understand. 

And  both  parts  of  this  fatality  must  hold 
true  of  ourselves.  Certainly,  our  subjection 
to  the  thing  we  look  on  is  almost  pitiable. 
We  cannot  even  remember  a  righteous  hatred 
without  beginning  to  take  color  from  the 
thing  we  hate.  Our  goodness  comes  solely 
from  thinking  on  goodness ;  our  wickedness 
from  thinking  on  wickedness.  We  too  are 
the  victims  of  our  own  contemplation. 

As  for  the  last  half  of  that  fatality,  that 
keeps  us  forever  ignorant  of  the  true  mean- 
ing of  our  lives,  it  is  not  an  absolute  igno- 
rance, like  our  ignorance  of  how  we  came  to 
exist.  It  is  a  qualified  ignorance,  like  our 
ignorance  that  we  have  hurt  some  one's  feel- 
ings. The  elements  of  understanding  are 
within  us :  to-morrow  the  whole  matter  may 
become  clear.  The  borders  of  our  under- 
standing extend,  as  we  push  outward  our 
frontier  of  inquiry.  This  is  both  a  frontier 
of  scepticism,  and  of  faith.  It  is  a  bulwark 
of  doubt  as  to  the  value  of  our  last  new 
*55 


PRACTICAL    AGITATION 

formula,  and  of  faith  as  to  the  reality  behind 
that  formula.  As  we  go  forward,  bringing 
our  lives  down  to  date,  holding  our  expe- 
rience at  arm's  length  and  examining  it 
with  a  merciless  endeavor  to  wring  the  truth 
out  of  it,  we  do,  from  day  to  day,  get  a 
clearer  notion  of  the  actual  world,  a  truer 
idea  of  our  own  place  in  it.  This  quali- 
fied and  modest  understanding  of  life,  that 
comes  from  putting  things  together  that 
seem  to  go  together,  is  within  the  power  of 
any  one. 

And  we  find  this:  the  more  unselfish  men 
become,  the  more  sensitive  do  they  become 
in  understanding  human  relations.  The 
gambler  cannot  see  that  he  is  giving  pain 
to  his  family;  his  self-indulgence  has  blunted 
his  sensibilities.  The  faith  healer  knows  that 
he  is  curing  a  man  in  a  neighboring  State; 
his  love  for  mankind  has  refined  his  sensibili- 
ties. Most  of  us  stand  somewhere  between 
these  two  extremes  in  the  scale  of  under- 
standing, and  are  moving  towards  one  or  the 
other.  Education,  then,  is  the  process  by 
which  we  gradually  discover  both  the  real 
nature  of  the  human  life  about  us,  and  our 
own  relation  to  the  whole  of  it.  The  process 
is  never  complete.  Even  poets  and  great 
men  are  in  the  dark  about  their  own  func- 
156 


CONCLUSION 

tion ;  but  they  are  less  in  the  dark  than  the 
rest  of  us.  They  speak  from  a  knowledge 
that  is  greater  than  ours.  They  have  a  won- 
derful power  over  us;  for  they  help  us  in 
our  struggle  to  see  the  world  as  it  is. 


*57 


~  </> 


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